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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/22058-0.txt b/22058-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..81f50aa --- /dev/null +++ b/22058-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6867 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornelius O’Dowd Upon Men And Women And +Other Things In General, by Charles Lever + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cornelius O’Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General + Originally Published In Blackwood’s Magazine - 1864 + +Author: Charles Lever + +Release Date: May 20, 2008 [EBook #22058] +Last Updated: September 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O’DOWD UPON MEN *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +CORNELIUS O’DOWD UPON MEN AND WOMEN AND OTHER THINGS IN GENERAL + +By Charles Lever + +Originally Published In Blackwood’s Magazine + +1864 + + + + +CONTENTS: + + Myself. + + A Friend Of Gioberts: Being A Reminiscence Of Seventeen Years Ago. + + Garibaldi’s Worshippers. + + Something About Solferino And Ships. + + The Stranger At The Croce Di Malta. + + The Strange Man’s Sorrow. + + Italian Law And Justice. + + The Organ Nuisance And Its Remedy. + + R. N. F. The Great Chevalier D’industrie Of Our Day. + + Gàribàldi + + A New Investment. + + Italian Traits And Characteristics. + + The Decline Of Whist. + + One Of Our “Two Puzzles”. + + A Masterly Inactivity. + + A New Hansard. + + Foreign Clubs. + + A Hint For C. S. Examiners. + + Of Some Old Dogs In Office. + + Decline Of The Drama. + + Pensions For Governors. + + A Grumble. + + Of Our Brothers Beyond The Border. + + The Rule Nisi. + + On Climbing Boys. + + Linguists + + The Old Conjurors And The New. + + Gambling For The Million. + + The Intoxicating Liquors Bill. + + + + +TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. + +My dear Anster, + +If you knew how often I have thought of you as I was writing this +book,--if you knew how there rose before my mind memories of long ago--of +those glorious evenings with all those fine spirits, to think of whom is +a triumph even with all its sadness,--and if you knew how I long to meet +once more the few soldiers who survive of that “old guard,”--you would +see how naturally I dedicate my volume to him who was the best of us. +Accept it, I beg you, as a token of recollection and regard from your +affectionate friend, + +CORNELIUS O’DOWD. + +Lago Maggiore, July 20,1864. + + + + +NOTICE. + +AMIABLE AND ACCOMPLISHED READER, + +As I have very little to say for myself that is not said in some of +my opening pages, there is no need that I should delay you on the +threshold. + +You will learn, if you take the trouble, by what course of events I came +to my present pursuit, converting myself into what a candid, but not +complimentary, friend has called “a diverting Vagabond.” + +The fact was, I gave the world every reasonable opportunity of knowing +that they had a remarkable man amongst them, but, with a stupidity all +their own, they wouldn’t see it; so that when the solicitor who once +gave me a brief died--I believe it was a softening of the brain--I +burned my wig and retired from the profession. + +Now, let people say what they may, it is by no means easy to invent a +new line of life; and even if you should, there are scores of people +ready to start up and seize on your discovery; and as I write these +lines I am by no means sure that to-morrow will not see some other +Cornelius O’Dowd inviting the public to a feast of wisdom and +life-knowledge, with perhaps a larger stock than my own of “things not +generally known.” I will disparage no man’s wares. There is, I feel +assured, a market for us all. My rivals, or my imitators, whichever you +like to call them, may prove superior to me; they maybe more ingenious, +more various, more witty, or more profound; but take my word for it, +bland Header, there is always something in the original tap, whether +the liquor be Harvey sauce or L.L. whisky, and such is mine. You are, in +coming to me, frequenting the old house; and if I could only descend to +it, I could print you more testimonials to success than Mr Morrison’s +of the pills, or the other man of cod-liver oil, but I scorn to give the +names, imparted as they were in secret gratitude. One only trick of +the trade I will condescend to--it is to assure you that you had need +to beware of counterfeits, and that no O’Dowderies are genuine except +signed by me. + +My heart is broke with requests for my autograph. Will a sympathising +public accept the above--which, of course, will be immediately +photographed. + + + + +CORNELIUS O’DOWD + + + + +MYSELF. + +Bland Reader,--If you ever look into the Irish papers--and I hope +you are not so exclusive regarding them as is Mr Cobden with the +‘Times’--you will see that, under the title, “Landed Estates Court, +County Mayo,” Judge Dobbs has just sold the town and lands of +Kilmuray-nabachlish, Ballaghy, and Gregnaslattery, the property of +Cornelius O’Dowd, Esq. of Dowd’s Folly, in the same county. + +Now the above-recited lands, measuring seven hundred and fourteen acres, +two roods, and eleven perches, statute measure, were mine, and I am the +Cornelius O’Dowd, Esq., referred to in the same paragraph. + +Though it is perfectly true that, what between mortgages, settlement +claims, and bonds, neither my father nor myself owned these lands any +more than we did the island of Jamaica, it was a great blow to me to be +sold out; for, somehow or other, one can live a long time in Ireland on +parchment--I mean on the mere documents of an estate that has long +since passed away; but if you come once to an open sale and Judge Dobbs, +there’s an end of you, and you’ll not get credit for a pair of shoes the +day after. + +My present reason for addressing you does not require that I should go +into my family history, or mention more of myself than that I was called +to the Bar in ‘42; that I stood an unsuccessful election for Athlone; +that I served as a captain in the West Coast Rifles; that I married a +young lady of great personal attractions; and completed my misfortunes +by taking the chairmanship of the Vichnasehneshee silver mines, that +very soon left me with nothing but copper in my own pocket, and sent me +to Judge Dobbs and his Court on the Inns Quay. + +Like the rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would +“do something” for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, +and I have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord +Clarendon’s day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly +with me, none said, “O’Dowd, we must do something for you;” and if it +was to rain commissionerships in lunacy, or prison inspectorships, I +don’t believe one would fall upon C. O’D. I never knew rightly how it +was, but though I was always liked at the Bar mess, and made much of on +circuit, I never got a brief. People were constantly saying to me, “Con, +if you were to do this, that, or t’other,” you’d make a hit; but it +was always conditional on my being somewhere, or doing something that I +never had attempted before. + +It was clear, if I was the right man, I wasn’t in the right place; and +this was all the more provoking, because, let me do what I would, some +one was sure to exclaim, “Con, my boy, don’t try that; it is certainly +not your line.” “What a capital agent for a new assurance company you’d +be!” “What a success you’d have had on the stage! You’d have played Sir +Lucius better than any living actor. Why don’t you go on the boards? Why +not start a penny newspaper? Why not give readings?” I wonder why they +didn’t tell me to turn organist or a painter in oils. + +“You’re always telling us how much you know of the world, Mr O’Dowd,” + said my wife; “I wish you could turn the knowledge to some account.” + +This was scarcely generous, to say the least of it. + +Mrs O’D. knew well that I was vain of the quality--that I regarded it +as a sort of specialty. In fact, deeming, with the poet, that the proper +study of mankind was man, I had devoted a larger share of my life to the +inquiry than quite consisted with professional advancement; and while +others pored over their Blackstone, I was “doing Baden;” and instead of +term reports and Crown cases, I was diverting myself in the Oberland or +on the Lago Maggiore. + +“And with all your great knowledge of life,” continued she, “I don’t +exactly see what it has done for you.” + +Now, Mrs O’Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn’t waste my +time in arguing with her--I didn’t crush her, as I might, by telling +her that the very highest and noblest of a man’s acquirements are, _ipso +facto_, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all +classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that +Greek and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar +fractions and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, +Mrs O’D. would have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the +rule-of-three against Sophocles and “all his works.” I simply replied, +with that dignity which is natural to me, “I _am_ proud of my knowledge +of life; I do recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture +that makes up human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to +advertise my discovery for sale, like Holloway’s Pills or somebody’s +cod-liver oil.” “Perhaps you knew nobody would buy it,” cried she, +and flounced out of the room, the bang of the door being one of the +“epigrams in action” wives are skilled in. + +Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself +to those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of +their own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure +in all it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering +delighted over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, +for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been +my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm +colouring, and its cold tints. + +It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every +“handling,” and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original. +“And can it be possible,” cried I aloud, “that while picture-dealers +revel in fortune--fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured +canvass--that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist--I, +who read men as I read a French comedy--that I should be obliged to deny +myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, and +that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me than +mere physic?” + +I do not--I will not--I cannot, believe it. No class of persons could +be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich argosy +that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the +Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no +insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no +dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these +I purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the +possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into +Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that +I mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more +dearly than I intend to dispose of it. _Haud ignarus mali_; I am willing +to tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. “Don’t +tell me of your successes,” said a great physician to his colleague, +“tell me of your blunders; tell me of the people you’ve killed.” I am +ready to do this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and +more, I will make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may +attach to an absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may +subject me to laughter. + +You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but +what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my +wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you +that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or +three in America; that I have been everywhere--eaten of everything--seen +everything. There’s not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn’t +grin a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Frères to the +Wilde Mann doesn’t trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers +speak up when I stroll into the Chamber, and _prima donnas_ soar above +the orchestra, and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit. + +I don’t like--I declare to you I do not like--saying these things; it +smacks of vanity. Now for my plan. I purpose to put these my gifts at +your disposal The year before us will doubtless be an eventful one. +What between Danes, Poles, and Italians, there must be a row somewhere. +The French are very eager for war; and the Austrians, as Paddy +says, “are blue-moulded for want of a beatin’.” There will be grand +“battle-pieces” to paint; but, better than these, portraits, groups, +“tableaux de genre”--Teniers bits, too, at the porch of an ale-house, +and warm little interiors, in the style of Mieris. I shall be +instructive at times--very instructive; and whenever I am very nice +and dull, be assured that I’m “full of information, and know my subject +thoroughly.” + +As “your own correspondent,” I am free to go wherever I please. I have +left Mrs O’D. in Ireland, and I revel in an Arcadian liberty. These +are all my credentials; and if with their aid I can furnish you any +amusement as to the goings-on of the world and its wife, or the doings +of that amiable couple in politics, books, theatres, or socialities, +I seek for nothing more congenial to my taste, nor more adapted to my +nature, as a bashful Irishman. + +If I will not often obtrude, I will not altogether avoid, my personal +experiences; for there is this to be said, that no testimony is worth +much unless we know something of the temper, the tastes, and the +character of the witness. We have all heard, for instance, of the +gentleman who couldn’t laugh at Munden’s drolleries on the stage for +thinking of a debt of ten pounds that the actor owed him: and this same +spirit has a great deal to do--far more than we like to own--with +our estimate of foreign countries. It is so hard to speak well of the +climate where we had that horrible rheumatism, or laud the honesty of a +people when we think of that rascally scoundrel of the Hotel d’Odessa. +For these reasons I mean to come into the witness-box occasionally, and +give you frankly, not merely my opinions, but the way they were come by. +I don’t affect to be superior to prejudices; I have as many of these as +a porcupine has bristles. There’s all the egotism I mean to inflict on +you, unless it comes under the guise of an incident--“a circumstance +which really occurred to the author”--and now, _en route_. + +I wonder am I right in thinking that the present race of travelling +English know less about the Continent and foreigners generally than +their predecessors of, say, five-and-twenty years ago. Railroads and +rapid travelling might be one cause; another is, that English is now +more generally spoken by all foreigners than formerly; and it may be +taken as a maxim, that nothing was ever asked or answered in broken +phraseology that was worth the hearing. People with a limited knowledge +of a strange language do not say what they _wish_, but what they _can_; +and there is no name for the helplessness of him who is tied up in his +preter-pluperfect tense. Now we English are not linguists; even our +diplomatists are remarkable for their little proficiency in French. +I’m not sure that we don’t benefit by this in the long-run. “Reden ist +silber, aber Schweigen ist gold”--“Speech is silver, but silence is +gold,” says the German adage; and what a deal of wisdom have I seen +attributed to a man who was posed by his declensions into a listener! +One of the only countrymen of my own who has made a great career lately +in public life is not a little indebted to deafness for it. He was so +unlike those rash, impetuous, impatient Irish, who _would_ interrupt--he +listened, or seemed to listen, and he even smiled at the sarcasms that +he did not hear. + +Listening, if we did but know it, sits more gracefully on us than +speech, when that speech involves the denial of genders, and the utter +confusion of all cases and tenses. + +Next to holding their tongues, there’s another thing I wish you English +would do abroad, which is, to dress like sane and responsible people. +Men are simply absurd; but the women, with their ill-behaved hoops and +short petticoats, are positively indecent; but the greatest of all +their travelling offences is the proneness to form acquaintance at +_tables-d’hôte_. + +It is, first of all, a rank indiscretion for any but men to dine at +these places. They are almost, as a rule, the resort of all that is +disreputable in both sexes. You are sure to eat badly, and in the very +worst of company. My warning is, however, meant for my countrywomen +only: men can, or at least ought, to take care of themselves. As for +myself, don’t be shocked; but I do like doubtful company--that is, I am +immensely interested by all that class of people which the world calls +adventurers, whether the same be railroad speculators, fortune-hunters, +discoverers of inexhaustible mines, or Garibaldians. Your respectable +man, with a pocket-book well stored with his circular notes, and his +passport in order, is as uninteresting as a “Treckshuyt” on a Dutch +canal; but your “martyr to circumstance” is like a smart felucca in a +strong Levanter; and you can watch his course--how he shakes out his +reefs or shortens sail--how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his +colours--with an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of +cleverness--what stores of practical ability--were lost to the world +in these out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently, +play every game well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot, +especially with the pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass +of qualities that win success! and, what often is harder, win goodwill +in life! There they are, by some unhappy twist in their natures, +preferring the precarious existence of the race-course or the +billiard-table; while others, with about a tithe of their talents, are +high in place and power. I met one of these men to-day, and a strong +specimen of the class, well dressed, well whiskered, very quiet in +manner, almost subdued in tone, but with a slight restlessness in his +eye that was very significant. We found ourselves at table, over +our coffee, when the others had left, and fell into conversation. He +declined my offered cigar with much courtesy, preferring to smoke +little cigarettes of his own making; and really the manufacture was very +adroit, and, in its way, a study of the maker’s habits. We talked over +the usual topics--the bad dinner we had just eaten, the strange-looking +company, the discomfort of the hotel generally, and suchlike. + +“Have we not met before?” asked he, after a pause. “If I don’t mistake, +we dined together aboard of Leslie’s yacht, the Fawn.” + +I shook my head. “Only knew Sir Francis Leslie by name; never saw the +Fawn.” + +The shot failed, but there was no recoil in his gun, and he merely bowed +a half apology. + +“A yacht is a mistake,” added he, after another interval. “One is +obliged to take, not the men one wants, but the fellows who can bear the +sea. Leslie, for instance, had such a set that I left him at Messina. +Strange enough, they took us for pirates there.” + +“For pirates!” + +“Yes. There were three fishing-boats--what they call _Bilancelle_--some +fifteen or sixteen miles out at sea, and when they saw us coming along +with all canvass set, they hauled up their nets and ran with all speed +for shore. Rather absurd, wasn’t it? but, as I told Leslie about his +friends, ‘the blunder wasn’t so great after all; there was only a vowel +between Raffs and Riffs.’” + +The disparagement of “questionable people” is such an old device of +adventurers, that I was really surprised such a master of his art as +my present friend would condescend to it. It belonged altogether to an +inferior practitioner; and, indeed, he quickly saw the effect it had +produced upon me, as he said, “Not that I care a straw for the fellows I +associate with; my theory is, a gentleman can know any one.” + +Richard was himself again as he uttered this speech, lying well back +in his chair, and sending a thin cloud of incense from the angle of his +mouth. + +“What snobs they were in Brummel’s day, for instance, always asking if +this or that man was fit to be known! Why, sir, it was the very fellows +they tabooed were the cream of the set; ‘it was the cards they threw out +were the trumps.’” + +The illustration came so pat that he smiled as he perceived by a twinkle +of my eye that I appreciated it. + +“My father,” continued he, “knew Brummel well, and he told me that his +grand defect was a want of personal courage--the very quality, of all +others, his career required. His impertinences always broke down when +brought to this test. I remember an instance he mentioned. + +“Amongst the company that frequented Carlton House was a certain old +Admiral P------, whom the Prince was fond of inviting, though he did not +possess a single agreeable quality, or any one convivial gift, except a +great power of drinking the very strongest port without its producing +the slightest show of effect upon him. + +“One night Brummel, evidently bent on testing the old sailor’s head, +seated himself next him, making it his business to pass the decanters as +briskly as he could. The admiral asked nothing better; filled and drank +bumpers. Not content with this legitimate test, Brummel watched his +opportunity when the admiral’s head was turned, and filled his glass +up to the brim. Four or five times was the trick repeated, and with +success; when at last the admiral, turning quickly around, caught him in +the very act, with the decanter still in his hand. Fixing his eyes +upon him with the fierceness of a tiger, the old man said, ‘Drink it, +sir--drink it!’ and so terrified was Brummel by the manner and the look +that he raised the glass to his lips and drained it, while all at the +table were convulsed with laughter.” + +The Brummel school--that is, the primrose-glove adventurers--were a very +different order of men from the present-day fellows, who take a turn +in Circassia or China, or a campaign with Garibaldi; and who, with all +their defects, are men of mettle and pluck and daring. Of these latter I +found my new acquaintance to be one. + +He sketched off the early part of the “expedition” graphically enough +for me, showing the disorder and indiscipline natural to a force +where every nationality of Europe was represented, and not by its most +favourable types. + +“I had an Irish servant,” said he, “whose blunders would fill a volume. +His prevailing impression, perhaps not ill-founded on the whole, was, +that we all had come out for pillage; and while a certain reserve +withheld most of us from avowing this fact, he spoke of it openly and +freely, expatiating admiringly on Captain This and Major That, who +had done a fine stroke of work in such a store, or such another +country-house. As for his blunders, they never ceased. I was myself the +victim of an absurd one. On the march from Melazzo I got a severe +strain in the chest by my horse falling and rolling over me. No bone +was broken, but I was much bruised, and a considerable extravasation of +blood took place under the skin. Of course I could not move, and I was +provided with a sort of litter, and slung between two mules. The +doctor prescribed a strong dose of laudanum, which set me to sleep, and +despatched Peter back to Melazzo with an order for a certain ointment, +which he was to bring without delay, as the case was imminent; this was +impressed upon him, as the fellow was much given to wandering off, when +sent of a message, after adventures of his own. + +“Fully convinced that I was in danger, away went Peter, very sad about +me, but even more distressed lest he should forget what he was sent for. +He kept repeating the words over and over as he went, till they became +by mere repetition something perfectly incomprehensible, so that when +he reached Melazzo nobody could make head or tail of his message. Group +after group gathered about and interrogated him, and at last, by means +of pantomime, discovered that his master was very ill. Signs were made +to inquire if bleeding was required, or if it was a case for amputation, +but he still shook his head in negative. ‘Is he dying?’ asked one, +making a gesture to indicate lying down. Peter assented. ‘Oh, then it +is the _unzione estrema_ he wants!’ ‘That’s it,’ cried Peter, +joyfully--‘unzione it is.’ Two priests were speedily found and +despatched; and I awoke out of a sound sleep under a tree to see three +lighted candles on each side of me, and two priests in full vestments +standing at my feet and gabbling away in a droning sort of voice, +while Peter blubbered and wrung his hands unceasingly. A jolly burst +of laughter from me soon dispelled the whole illusion, and Peter had to +hide himself for shame for a week after.” + +“What became of the fellow--was he killed in the campaign?” + +“Killed! nothing of the kind; he rose to be an officer, served on +Nullo’s staff, and is at this very hour in Poland, and, if I mistake +not, a major.” + +“Men of this stamp make occasionally great careers,” said I, carelessly. + +“No, sir,” replied he, very gravely. “To do anything really brilliant, +the adventurer must have been a gentleman at one time or other: the +common fellow stops short at petty larcenies; the man of good blood +always goes in for the mint.” + +“There was, then,” asked I, “a good deal of what the Yankees call +‘pocketing’ in that campaign of Garibaldi’s?” + +“Less than one might suppose. Have you not occasionally seen men at a +dinner-party pass this and refuse that, waiting for the haunch, or the +pheasant, or the blackcock that they are certain is coming, when all +of a sudden the jellies and ices make their appearance, and the curtain +falls? So it was with many of us; we were all waiting for Rome, and +licking our lips for the Vatican and the Cardinals’ palaces, when in +came the Piedmontese and finished the entertainment. If I meet you here +to-morrow, I can tell you more about this;” and so saying he arose, gave +me an easy nod, and strolled away. + +“Who is that most agreeable gentleman who took his coffee with me?” + asked I of the waiter as I entered the _salle_. + +“It’s the Generale Inglese, who served with Garibaldi.” + +“And his name?” + +“Ah, _per bacco!_ I never heard his name--Garibaldi calls him Giorgio, +and the ladies who call here to take him out to drive now and then +always say Giorgino--not that he’s so very small, for all that.” + +My Garibaldian friend failed in his appointment with me this morning. +We were to have gone together to a gallery, or a collection of ancient +armour, or something of this sort, but he probably saw, as your clever +adventurer _will_ see, with half an eye, that I could be no use +to him--that I was a wayfarer like himself on life’s highroad; and +prudently turned round on his side and went to sleep again. + +There is no quality so distinctive in this sort of man or woman--for +adventurer has its feminine--as the rapid intuition with which he seizes +on all available people, and throws aside all the unprofitable ones. A +money-changer detecting a light napoleon is nothing to it. What are the +traits by which they guide their judgment--what the tests by which they +try humanity, I do not know, but that they do read a stranger at first +sight is indisputable. That he found out Cornelius O’Dowd wasn’t a +member of the British Cabinet, or a junior partner in Baring’s, was, you +may sneeringly conjecture, no remarkable evidence of acuteness. But why +should he discover the fact--fact it is--that he’d never be one penny +the richer by knowing me, and that intercourse with me was about as +profitable as playing a match at billiards “for the table”? + +Say what people will against roguery and cheating, rail as they may at +the rapacity and rascality one meets with, I declare and protest, after +a good deal of experience, that the world is a very poor world to +him who is not the mark of some roguery! When you are too poor to be +cheated, you are too insignificant to be cherished; and the man that is +not worth humbugging isn’t very far from bankruptcy. + +It gave me a sort of shock, therefore, when I saw that my friend took +this view of me, and I strolled down moodily enough to the Chamber of +Deputies. Turin is a dreary city for a lounger; even a resident finds +that he must serve a seven years’ apprenticeship before he gets any +footing in its stiff ungenial society--for of all Italians, nothing +socially is less graceful than a Piedmontese. They have none of the +courteous civility, none of the urbane gentleness of the peninsular +Italians. They are cold, reserved, proud, and eminently awkward; not the +less so, perhaps, that their habitual tongue is the very vilest jargon +that ever disfigured a human mouth. Of course this is an efficient +barrier against intercourse with strangers; and though French is spoken +in society, it bears about the same relation to that language at Paris, +as what is called pigeon-English at Hong-Kong does to the tongue in use +in Belgravia. + +When I reached the Palazzo Carignan, as the Chamber is called, the +_séance_ was nearly over, and a scene of considerable uproar prevailed. +There had been a somewhat sharp altercation between General Bixio and +the “Left,” and M. Mordini had repeatedly appealed to the President to +make the General recall some offensive epithets he had bestowed on the +“party of movement.” There were the usual cries and gesticulations, +the shouts of derision, the gestures of menace; and, above all, the +tinkle-tinkle of the Presidents bell, which was no more minded than the +summons for a waiter in an Irish inn; and on they went in this hopeless +way, till some one, I don’t know why, cried out, “That’s enough--we are +satisfied;” by which it seemed that somebody had apologised, but for +what, or how, or to whom, I have not the very vaguest conception. + +With all their depreciation of France, the Italians are the most +persistent imitators of Frenchmen, and the Chamber was exactly a copy of +the French Chamber in the old Louis Philippe days--all violence, noise, +sensational intensity, and excitement. + +I have often heard public speakers mention the difficulty of adjusting +the voice to the size of a room in which they found themselves for the +first time, and the remark occurred to me as figuratively displaying one +of the difficulties of Italian public men. The speakers in reality never +clearly knew how far their words were to carry--whether they spoke to +the Chamber or to the Country. + +Is there or is there not a public opinion in Italy? Can the public +speaker direct his words over the heads of his immediate surrounders +to countless thousands beyond them? If he cannot, Parliament is but a +debating-club, with the disadvantage of not being able to select the +subjects for discussion. + +The glow of patriotism is never rightly warm, nor is the metal of party +truly malleable, without the strong blast of a public opinion. + +The Turin Chamber has no echo in the country; and, so far as I see, +the Italians are far more eager to learn what is said in the French +Parliament than in their own. + +I remember an old waiter at the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin, who got a +prize in the lottery and retired into private life, but who never could +hear a bell ring without crying out, “Coming, sir.” The Italians remind +me greatly of him: they have had such a terrible time of flunkeyism, +that they start at every summons, no matter what hand be on the +bell-rope. + +To be sure the French did bully them awfully in the last war. Never was +an alliance more dearly paid for. We ourselves are not a very compliant +or conciliating race, but we can remember what it cost us to submit to +French insolence and pretension in the Crimea; and yet we did submit to +it, not always with a good grace, but in some fashion or other. + +Here comes my Garibaldino again, and with a proposal to go down to Genoa +and look at the Italian fleet. I don’t suppose that either of us know +much of the subject; and indeed I feel, in my ignorance, that I might be +a senior Lord of the Admiralty--but that is only another reason for +the inquiry. “One is nothing,” says Mr Puff, “if he ain’t critical” So +Heaven help the Italian navy under the conjoint commentaries of myself +and my friend! Meanwhile, and before we start, one word more of Turin. + + + + +A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. + +Here I am at the “Feder” in Turin--as dirty a hotel, be it said +passingly, as you’ll find out of Ireland, and seventeen long years it +is since I saw it first. Italy has changed a good deal in the +meanwhile--changed rulers, landmarks, systems, and ideas; not so my +old acquaintance, the Feder! There’s the dirty waiter flourishing his +dirtier napkin; and there’s the long low-ceilinged _table-d’hôte_ room, +stuffy and smoky, and suffocating as ever; and there are the little +grinning coteries of threes and fours round small tables soaking their +rolls in chocolate, and puffing their “Cavours,” with faces as innocent +of soap as they were before the war of the liberation. After all, +perhaps, I’d have no objection if some friend would cry out, “Why, Con, +my boy, you don’t look a day older than when I saw you here in ‘46, I +think! I protest you have not changed in the least. What _elixir vitæ_ +have you swallowed, old fellow? Not a wrinkle, nor a grey hair,” and so +on. And yet seventeen years taken out of the working part of a man’s +life--that period that corresponds with the interval between after +breakfast, we’ll say, and an hour before dinner--makes a great gap in +existence; for I did very little as a boy, being not an early riser, +perhaps, and now, in the evening of my days, I have got a theory that a +man ought to dine early and never work after it. Though I’m half +ashamed, on so short an acquaintance with my reader, to mention a +personal incident, I can scarcely avoid--indeed I cannot avoid--relating +a circumstance connected with my first visit to the “Hotel Feder.” + +I was newly married when I came abroad for a short wedding-tour. The +world at that time required new-married people to lay in a small stock +of Continental notions, to assist their connubiality and enable them to +wear the yoke with the graceful ease of foreigners; and so Mrs O’D. and +I started with one heart, one passport, and--what’s not so pleasant--one +hundred pounds, to comply with this ordinance. Of course, once over the +border--once in France--it was enough. So we took up our abode in a +very unpretending little hotel of Boulogne-sur-Mer called “La Cour de +Madrid,” where we boarded for the moderate sum of eleven francs fifty +centimes per diem--the odd fifty being saved by my wife not taking the +post-prandial cup of coffee and rum. + +There was not much to see at Boulogne, and we soon saw it. For a week or +so Mrs O’D. used to go out muffled like one of the Sultan’s five hundred +wives, protesting that she’d surely be recognised; but she grew out of +the delusion at last, and discovered that our residence at the Cour de +Madrid as effectually screened us from all remark or all inquiry as if +we had taken up our abode in the Catacombs. + +Now when one has got a large stock of any commodity on hand--I don’t +care what it is--there’s nothing so provoking as not to find a market. +Mrs O’D.’s investment was bashfulness. She was determined to be the +most timid, startled, modest, and blushing creature that ever wore +orange-flowers; and yet there was not a man, woman, or child in the +whole town that cared to know whether the act for which she left England +was a matrimony or a murder. + +“Don’t you hate this place, Cornelius?”--she never called me Con in the +honeymoon. “Isn’t it the dullest, dreariest hole you have ever been in?” + +“Not with you.” + +“Then don’t yawn when you say so. I abhor it. It’s dirty, it’s vulgar, +it’s dear.” + +“No, no. It ain’t dear, my love; don’t say, dear.” + +“Billiards perhaps, and filthy cigars, and that greenish +bitter--anisette, I think they call it--are cheap enough, perhaps; but +these are all luxuries I can’t share in.” + +Here was the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that presaged the first +connubial hurricane. A married friend--one of much experience and +long-suffering--had warned me of this, saying, “Don’t fancy you’ll +escape, old fellow; but do the way the Ministry do about Turkey--put the +evil day off; diplomatise, promise, cajole, threaten a bit if needs be, +but postpone;” and, strong with these precepts, I negotiated, as the +phrase is, and, with a dash of reckless liberality that I tremble at now +as I record it, I said, “You’ve only to say where--nothing but where +to, and I’ll take you--up the Rhine, down the Danube, Egypt, the +Cataracts------” + +“I don’t want to go so far,” said she, dryly. “Italy will do.” + +This was a stunner. I hoped the impossible would have stopped her, but +she caught at the practicable, and foiled me. + +“There’s only one objection,” said I, musing. + +“And what may that be? Not money, I hope.” + +“Heaven forbid--no. It’s the language. We get on here tolerably well, +for the waiter speaks broken English; but in Italy, dearest, English is +unknown.” + +“Let us learn Italian, then. My aunt Groves said I had a remarkable +talent for languages.” + +I groaned inwardly at this, for the same aunt Groves had vouched for +a sum of seventeen hundred and odd pounds as her niece’s fortune, but +which was so beautifully “tied up,” as they called it, that neither +Chancellor nor Master were ever equal to the task of untying it. + +“Of course, dearest, let us learn Italian;” and I thought how I’d crush +a junior counsel some day with a smashing bit of Dante. + +We started that same night--travelled on day after day--crossed +Mont Cenis in a snow-storm, and reached the Feder as wayworn and +wretched-looking a pair as ever travelled on an errand of bliss and +beatitude. + +“In for a penny” is very Irish philosophy, but I can’t help that; so I +wrote to my brother Peter to sell out another hundred for me out of the +“Threes,” saying “dear Paulina’s health required a little change to a +milder climate” (it was snowing when I wrote, and the thermometer over +the chimneypiece at 9° Reaumur, with windows that wouldn’t shut, and a +marble floor without carpet)--“that the balmy air of Italy” (my teeth +chattered as I set it down) “would soon restore her; and indeed already +she seemed to feel the change.” That she did, for she was crouching over +a pan of charcoal ashes, with a railroad wrapper over her shoulders. + +It’s no use going over what is in every one’s experience on first coming +south of the Alps--the daily, hourly difficulty of not believing that +you have taken a wrong road and got into Siberia; and strangest of +all it is to see how little the natives think of it. I declare I often +thought soap must be a great refrigerant, and I wish some chemist would +inquire into the matter. + +“Are we ever to begin this blessed language?” said Mrs O’D. to me, after +four days of close arrest--snow still falling and the thermometer going +daily down, down, lower and lower. Now I had made inquiries the day +before from the landlord, and learned that he knew of a most competent +person, not exactly a regular teacher who would insist upon our going +to work in school fashion, but a man of sense and a gentleman--indeed, +a person of rank and title, with whom the world had gone somewhat badly, +and who was at that very moment suffering for his political opinions, +far in advance, as they were, of those of his age. + +“He’s a friend of Gioberti,” whispered the landlord in my ear, while his +features became animated with the most intense significance. Now, I +had never so much as heard of Gioberti, but I felt it would be a +deep disgrace to confess it, and so I only exclaimed, with an air of +half-incredulity, “Indeed!” + +“As true as I’m here,” replied he. “He usually drops in about noon to +read the ‘Opinione,’ and, if you permit, I’ll send him up to you. His +name is Count Annibale Castrocaro.” + +I hastened forthwith to Mrs O’D., to apprise her of the honour that +awaited us; repeating, a little _in extenso_, all that the host had +said, and finishing with the stunning announcement, “and a friend of +Gio-berti.” Mrs O’Dowd never flinched under the shock, and, too proud to +own her ignorance, she pertly remarked, “I don’t think the more of him +for that.” + +I felt that she had beat me, and I sat down abashed and humiliated. +Meanwhile Mrs O’D. retired to make some change of dress; but, +reappearing after a while in her smartest morning toilette, and a very +coquettish little cap, with cherry-coloured ribbons, I saw what the word +Count had done at once. + +Just as the clock struck twelve, the waiter flung wide the double doors +of our room, and announced, as pompously as though for royalty, “II +Signor Conte di Castrocaro,” and there entered a tall man slightly +stooping in the shoulders, with a profusion of the very blackest hair +on his neck and shoulders, his age anything from thirty-five to +forty-eight, and his dress a shabby blue surtout, buttoned to the throat +and reaching below the knees. He bowed and slid, and bowed again, till +he came opposite where my wife sat, and then, with rather a dramatic +sort of grace, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. She +reddened a little, but I saw she wasn’t displeased with the air of +homage that accompanied the ceremony, and she begged him to be seated. + +I own I was disappointed with the Count, his hair was so greasy, and +his hands so dirty, and his general get-up so uncared for; but Mrs O’D. +talked away with him very pleasantly, and he replied in his own broken +English, making little grimaces and smiles and gestures, and some very +tender glances, do duty where his parts of speech failed him. In fact, I +watched him as a sort of psychological phenomenon, and I arrived at the +conclusion that this friend of Gioberti’s was a very clever artist. + +All was speedily settled for the lessons--hour, terms, and mode of +instruction. It was to be entirely conversational, with a little +theme-writing, no getting by heart, no irregular verbs, no declensions, +no genders. I did beg hard for a little grammar, but he wouldn’t hear of +it. It was against his “system,” and so I gave in. + +We began the next day, but the Count ignored me altogether, directing +almost all his attentions to Mrs O’D.; and as I had already some small +knowledge of the elementary part of the language, I was just as well +pleased that she should come up, as it were, to my level. From this +cause I often walked off before the lesson was over, and sometimes, +indeed, I skulked it altogether, finding the system, as well as +Gioberti’s friend, to be an unconscionable bore. Mrs O’D., on the +contrary, displayed an industry I never believed her to possess, and +would pass whole evenings over her exercises, which often covered +several sheets of letter-paper. + +We had now been about five weeks in Turin, when my brother wrote to +request I would come back as speedily as I could, that a case in which +I held a brief was high in the cause-list, and would be tried very early +in the session. I own I was not sorry at the recall. I detested the +dreary life I was leading. I hated Turin and its bad feeding and bad +theatres, its rough wines and its rougher inhabitants. + +“Did you tell the Count we are off on Saturday?” asked I of Mrs O’D. + +“Yes,” said she, dryly. + +“I suppose he’s inconsolable,” said I, with a sneer. + +“He’s very sorry we’re going, if you mean that, Mr O’Dowd; and so am I +too.” + +“Well, so am not I; and you may call me a Dutchman if you catch me here +again.” + +“The Count hopes you will permit him to see you. He asked this morning +whether he might call on you about four o’clock.” + +“Yes, I’ll see him with sincere pleasure for once,” I cried; “since it +is to say good-bye to him.” + +I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count +was announced and shown in. “Excuse me, Count,” said I, “for receiving +you so informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to +England, and no time to spare.” + +“I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as +it is,” said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never +observed in him before. + +“Well, sir,” said I, stiffly; “I am at your orders.” + +It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to +own that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper +to relate what took place. I can but give the substance of our +conversation. It is not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this +purport:--The Count had come to inform me that, without any intention or +endeavour on his part, he had gained Mrs O’Dowd’s affections and won her +heart! Yes, much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting +opposite to me at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was +apologising for having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, +he was most circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one +side, and that he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself +as became a Gran’ Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that +might mean. + +My amazement--I might almost call it my stupefaction--at the +unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to +him without an effort at interruption. + +“I have come to you, therefore, to-day,” said he, “to give up her +letters.” + +“Her letters!” exclaimed I; “and she has written to you!” + +“Twenty-three times in all,” said he, calmly, as he drew a large black +pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. +“The earlier ones are less interesting,” said he, turning them over. “It +is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she +commences to call me ‘Caro Animale’--she meant to say Annibale, but, +poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger--‘Animale Mio’--the same +error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, ‘Diletto del mio cuore, quando +non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il mio +Tiranno’--that was _you_.” + +I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought +he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. +I saw that Gioberti’s friend had his wits about him, and resumed the +conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in +my wife’s handwriting. + +“Very true,” said he; “these, as you will perceive by the official +stamp, are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura--the originals +are safe.” + +“And with what object,” asked I, gasping--“safe for what?” + +“For you, lllustrissimo,” said he, bowing, “when you pay me two thousand +francs for them.” + +“I’ll knock your brains out first,” said I, with another clutch at the +poker, but the muzzle of the pistol was now directly in front of me. + +“I am moderate in my demands, signor,” said he, quietly; “there are men +in my position would ask you twenty thousand; but I am a galantuomo----” + +“And the friend of Gioberti,” added I, with a sneer. + +“Precisely so,” said he, bowing with much grace. + +I will not weary you, dear reader, with my struggles--conflicts that +almost cost me a seizure on the brain--but hasten to the result. I beat +down the noble Count’s demand to one-half and for a thousand francs +I possessed myself of the fatal originals, written unquestionably and +indisputably by my wife’s hand; and then, giving the Count a final piece +of advice, never to let me see more of him, I hurried off to Mrs O’Dowd. + +She was out paying some bills, and only arrived a few minutes before +dinner-hour. + +“I want you, madam, for a moment here,” said I, with something of +Othello, in the last act, in my voice and demeanour. + +“I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O’Dowd,” said +she, snappishly. + +“No, madam; you may probably find that you’ll need them both at the end +of our interview.” + +“What do you mean, sir?” asked she, haughtily. + +“This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam,” said I, with +the tone of the avenging angel. “Do you know these? are these in your +hand? Deny it if you can.” + +“Why should I deny it? Of course they’re mine.” + +“And you wrote this, and this, and this?” cried I, almost in a scream, +as I shook forth one after another of the letters. + +“Don’t you know I did?” said she, as hotly; “and nothing beyond a venial +mistake in one of them!” + +“A what, woman? a what?” + +“A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up +half the night at my exercises?” + +“Exercises!” + +“Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies +of them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day--here +are the rough ones;” and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of +papers all scrawled over and blotted. “And now, sir, once more, what do +you mean?” + +I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. “Where +does that Count Castrocaro live?” I asked. + +“Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left +Turin--started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He’s a Gran’ +Galantuomo, sir,” added he, as I stood stupefied. + +“I am aware of that,” said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my +packing. + +“Did you settle with the Count?” asked my wife at the door. + +“Yes,” said I, with my head buried in my trunk. + +“And he was perfectly satisfied?” + +“Of course he was--he has every reason to be so.” + +“I am glad of it,” said she, moving away--“he had a deal of trouble with +those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him.” I could have +told what they cost _me_; but I never did, till the present moment. + +I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what +abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the +evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill +before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. +All these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their +bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with +composure of this friend of Gioberti. + +Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he +gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, “and he’d give ten more to any one +who’d tell him what to do with it.” I strongly suspect this is pretty +much the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is--at +least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, +where is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack? + +The very last thing Italians have in their minds is a war with England. +If we have not done them any great or efficient service, we have always +spoken civilly of them, and bade them a God-speed. But, besides a +certain goodwill that they feel for us, they entertain--as a nation with +a very extended and ill-protected coast-line ought--a considerable dread +of a maritime power that could close every port they possess, and lay +some very important towns in ashes. + +Now, it is exactly by the possession of a fleet that, in any future +war between England and France, these people may be obliged to ally +themselves to France. The French will want them in the Mediterranean, +and they cannot refuse when called on. + +Count Cavour always kept telling our Foreign Office, “A strong Italy is +the best thing in the world for you. A strong Italy is the surest of all +barriers against France.” There may be some truth in the assertion if +Italy could spring at once--Minerva fashion--all armed and ready for +combat, and stand out as a first-rate power in Europe; but to do this +requires years of preparation, long years too; and it is precisely +in these years of interval that France can become all-dominant in +Italy--the master, and the not very merciful master, of her destinies +in everything. France has the guardianship of Italy--with this addition, +that she can make the minority last as long as she pleases. + +Perhaps my Garibaldian companion has impregnated me with an unreasonable +amount of anti-French susceptibility, for certainly he abuses our dear +allies with a zeal and a gusto that does one’s heart good to listen to; +and I do feel like that honest Bull, commemorated by Mathews, that “I +hate prejudice--I hate the French.” So it is: these revolutionists, +these levellers, these men of the people, are never weary of reviling +the French Emperor for being a _parvenu_. Human inconsistency cannot go +much farther than this. Not but I perfectly agree with my Garibaldian, +that we have all agreed to take the most absurdly exaggerated estimate +of the Emperor’s ability. Except in some attempts, and not always +successful attempts, to carry out the policy and plans of the first +Empire, there is really nothing that deserves the name of statesmanship +in his career. Wherever he has ventured on a policy, and accompanied it +by a prediction, it has been a failure. Witness the proud declaration +of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, with its corroboration in the +Treaty of Villafranca! The Emperor, in his policy, resembles one of +those whist-players who never plan a game, but play trick by trick, and +rather hope to win by discovering a revoke than from any honest success +of their own hand. It is all the sharp practice of statecraft that +he employs: nor has he many resources in cunning. The same dodge that +served him in the Crimea he revived at Villafranca. It is always the +same ace he has in his sleeve! + +The most ardent Imperialist will not pretend to say that he knows his +road out of rome or Mexico, or even Madagascar. For small intrigue, +short speeches to deputations, and mock stag-hunts, he has not his +superior anywhere. And now, here we are in Genoa, at the Hotel Feder, +where poor O’Connell died, and there’s no fleet, not a frigate, in the +port. + +“Where are they?” + +“At Spezia.” + +“Where is Spezia?” + +The landlord, to whom this question is propounded, takes out of a +pigeon-hole of his desk a large map and unfolds it, saying, proudly, +“There, sir, that is Spezia--a harbour that could hold Portsmouth, +and Plymouth, and Brest, and Cherbourg “--I’m not sure he didn’t say +Calais--“and yet have room for our Italian fleet, which, in two years’ +time, will be one of the first in Europe.” + +“The ships are building, I suppose?” said I. + +“They are.” + +“And where?” + +“In America, at Toulon, and in England.” + +“None in Italy?” + +“Pardon me; there is a corvette on the stocks at Leghorn, and they are +repairing a boiler at Genoa. Ah! Signor John Bull, take care; we have +iron and coal mines, we have oak and hemp, and tallow and tar. There +was a winged lion once that swept the seas before people sang ‘Rule +Britannia.’ History is going to repeat itself.” + +“Let me be called at eight to-morrow morning, and my coffee be ready by +nine.” + +“And we shall want a vetturino for Spezia,” added my Garibaldian; “let +him be here by eleven.” + + + + +GARIBALDI’S WORSHIPPERS. + +The road from Genoa to Spezia is one of the most beautiful in Europe. As +the Apennines descend to the sea they form innumerable little bays and +creeks, alongside of which the road winds--now coasting the very shore, +now soaring aloft on high-perched cliffs, and looking down into deep +dells, or to the waving tops of tall pine-trees. Seaward, it is a +succession of yellow-stranded bays, land-locked and narrow; and on the +land side are innumerable valleys, some waving with horse-chestnut and +olive, and others stern and rock-bound, but varying in colour from the +bluish-grey of marble to every shade of porphyry. + +For several miles after we left Genoa, the road presented a succession +of handsome villas, which, neglected and uncared for, and in most +part untenanted, were yet so characteristically Italian in all their +vast-ness--their massive style and spacious plan--as to be great +ornaments of the scenery. Their gardens, too--such glorious wildernesses +of rich profusion--where the fig and the oleander, the vine and the +orange, tangle and intertwine--and cactuses, that would form the wonder +of our conservatories, are trained into hedgerows to protect cabbages. +My companion pointed out to me one of these villas on a little jutting +promontory of rock, with a narrow bay on one side, almost hidden by the +overhanging chestnut-trees. “That,” said he, “is the Villa Spinola. It +was from there, after a supper with his friend Vecchi, that Garibaldi +sailed on his expedition to Marsala. A sort of decent secrecy was +maintained as to the departure of the expedition; but the cheers of +those on shore, as the boats pulled off, told that the brave buccaneers +carried with them the heartfelt good wishes of their countrymen.” + Wandering on in his talk from the campaign of Sicily and Calabria, +my companion spoke of the last wild freak of Garibaldi and the day of +Aspromonte, and finally of the hero’s imprisonment at Varignano, in the +Gulf of Spezia. + +It appeared from his account that the poor wounded sufferer would have +fared very ill, had it not been for the provident kindness and care of +his friends in England, who supplied him with everything he could want +and a great deal he could by no possibility make use of. Wine of +every kind, for instance, was largely sent to one who was a confirmed +water-drinker, and who, except when obliged by the impure state of the +water, never ventured to taste wine. If now and then the zealous anxiety +to be of service had its ludicrous side--and packages arrived of which +all the ingenuity of the General’s followers failed to detect what the +meaning might be--there was something very noble and very touching in +this spontaneous sympathy of a whole people, and so Garibaldi felt it. + +The personal homage of the admirers--the worshippers they might be +called--was, however, an infliction that often pushed the patience of +Garibaldi’s followers to its limit, and would have overcome the gentle +forbearance of any other living creature than Garibaldi himself. They +came in shoals. Steamboats and diligences were crammed with them, and +the boatmen of Spezia plied as thriving a trade that summer as though +Garibaldi were a saint, at whose shrine the devout of all Europe came to +worship. In vain obstacles were multiplied and difficulties to entrance +invented. In vain it was declared that only a certain number of visitors +were daily admitted, and that the number was already complete. In vain +the doctors announced that the General’s condition was prejudiced, and +his feverish state increased, by these continual invasions. Each new +arrival was sure to imagine that there was something special or peculiar +in his case to make him an exception to any rule of exclusion. + +“I knew Garibaldi in Monte Video. You have only to tell him it’s +Tomkins; he’ll be overjoyed to see me.” “I travelled with him from +Manchester to Bridgeport; he’ll remember me when he sees me; I lent him +a wrapper in the train.” “I knew his son Menotti when at school.” “I was +in New York when Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking +for his candles;” such and suchlike were the claims which would not +be denied. At last the infliction became insupportable. Some nights +of unusual pain and suffering required that every precaution against +excitement should be taken, and measures were accordingly concerted how +visitors should be totally excluded. There was this difficulty in the +matter, that it might fall at this precise moment some person of real +consequence might have, or some one whose presence Garibaldi would +really have been well pleased to enjoy. All these considerations were, +however, postponed to the patient’s safety, and an order was sent to +the several hotels where strangers usually stopped to announce that +Garibaldi could not be seen. + +“There is a story,” said my companion, “which I have heard more than +once of this period, but for whose authenticity I will certainly not +vouch. _Se non vero e’ ben trovato_, as regards the circumstance. It +was said that a party of English ladies had arrived at the chief hotel, +having come as a deputation from some heaven-knows-what association in +England, to see the General, and make their own report on his health, +his appearance, and what they deemed his prospect of perfect recovery. +They had come a very long journey, endured a considerable share of +fatigues and certain police attentions, which are not exactly what +are called amenities. They had come, besides, on an errand which might +warrant a degree of insistance even were they--which they were not--of +an order that patiently puts up with denial. When their demand for +admission was replied to by a reference to the general order excluding +all visitors, they indignantly refused to be classed in such a category. +They were not idle tourists, or sensation-hunting travellers. They were +a deputation! They came from the Associated Brothers and Sisters +of Freedom--from the Branch Committee of the Ear of Crying +Nationalities--they were not to be sent away in this light and +thoughtless manner. + +“The correspondence was animated. It lasted the whole day, and the +last-sent epistle of the ladies bore the date of half-past eleven at +night. This was a document of startling import; for, after expressing, +and not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of +the writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort +of way, the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to +England with the story of their rejection. + +“Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the +battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade; +and that, from the hour of these ladies’ arrival in England, all +supplies would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the +greater number of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the +suite of Garibaldi, not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts +and choice hosiery, silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the +ordinary wear of people to whom such luxuries were not known even by +description, it was no mean menace that seemed to declare all this was +to have an end. + +“One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of +Arundel’s port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that +English liqueur called ‘Punch sauce,’ and so on; and they very reasonably +disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel. + +“It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed +itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari, +one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore +that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair, +mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat +closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the +General, was the plan--a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief +some annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more +than was now intended. + +“To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in +his habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was +introduced. The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One +dropped, Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot +of his bed; another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained +the bedside to grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion +to water it with her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party +took out her scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble +head. They sobbed over him--they blubbered over him--they compared him +with his photograph, and declared he was libelled--they showered cards +over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, +not unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they +declared that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they’d have willingly +made a pilgrimage to Mecca. + +“It is said,” continued my informant, “that Ripari never could be +induced to give another representation; and that he declared the +luxuries that came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed +by a deputation of sympathisers. + +“But to Garibaldi himself, the sympathy and the sympathisers went on to +the last; and kind wishes and winter-clothing still find their way, with +occasionally very tiresome visitors, to the lone rock at Caprera.” + + + + +SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. + +Our host of the Feder was not wrong. There was not a word of +exaggeration in what he said of Spezia. It could contain all the +harbours of France and England, and have room for all the fleets of +Europe besides. About seven miles in depth, and varying in width from +two to three and a half, it is fissured on every side by beautiful +little bays, with deep water everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, +or a bar, throughout the whole extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf +has its protection by the long coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away +to the southward and eastward, so that the security is perfect, and a +vessel once anchored within the headlands between Lerici and Palmaria is +as safe as in dock. + +The first idea of making a great arsenal and naval depot of Spezia came +from the Great Emperor. It is said that he was not more than one day +there, but in that time he planned the fort which bears his name, and +showed how the port could be rendered all but impregnable. Cavour took +up the notion, and pursued it with all his wonted energy and activity +during the last three or four years of his life. He carried through the +Chamber his project, and obtained a vote for upwards of two millions +sterling; but his death, which occurred soon after, was a serious blow +to the undertaking; and, like most of the political legacies of the +great statesman, the arsenal of Spezia fell into the hands of weak +executors. + +The first great blunder committed was to accord the chief contract to +a bubble company, who sold it, to be again resold; so that it is said +something like fifteen changes of proprietary occurred before the first +spadeful of earth was turned. + +The inordinate jealousy Italians have of foreigners, and their fear lest +they should “utilise” Italy, and carry away all her wealth with them, +has been the source of innumerable mistakes. From this, and their +own ignorance of marine engineering, Spezia has already, without the +slightest evidence of a commencement, swallowed up above eight millions +of francs--the only palpable results being the disfigurement of a very +beautiful road, and the bankruptcy of some half-dozen contractors. + +There is nothing of which one hears more, than of the readiness and +facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts +himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the +management of new machinery. + +Every newly-come English engineer was struck with this, and expressed +freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. +After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself +disappointed--that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence +no progress was made--that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but +did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or +say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something +new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some one +branch, and never ask to go beyond it, was a sentiment they could not +understand. Every one, in fact, would have liked to do everything, and, +as a consequence, do it exceedingly ill. + +Assuredly the Count Cavour was the political Marquis de Carabas of +Italy. Everything you see was his! No other head seemed to contrive, no +other eye to see, nor ear to hear. These railroads--as much for military +movements as passenger traffic--this colossal harbour, even to the two +iron-clads that lie there at anchor--were all of his designing. They +are ugly-looking craft, and have a look of pontoons rather than ships +of war; but they are strong, and have a low draught of water, and were +intended especially for the attack of Venice, just when the Emperor +pulled up short at Villafranca. It is not generally known, I believe, +but I can vouch for the fact, that so terrified were the Austrians on +receiving at Venice the disastrous news of Solferino, that three of the +largest steamers of the Austrian Lloyd’s Company were brought up, and +sunk within twelve hours after the battle. So hurriedly was the whole +done that no time was given to remove the steward’s stores, and the +vessels went down as they stood! + +This reminds me of a little incident, for whose exact truth I can +guarantee. On the day of the battle of Solferino, the Austrian Envoy +at Rome dined with the Cardinal Antonelli. It was a very joyous little +dinner, each in the highest spirits--satisfied with the present, and +full of hope for the future. The telegram which arrived at mid-day told +that the troops were in motion, and that the artillery fire had already +opened. The position was a noble one--the army full of spirit, and all +confident that before the sun should set the tide of victory would have +turned, and the white legions of the Danube be in hot pursuit of their +flying enemy. Indeed, the Envoy came to dinner fortified with a mass of +letters from men high in command, all of which assumed as indisputable +that the French must be beaten. Of the Italians they never spoke at all. + +As the two friends sat over the dessert, they discussed what at that +precise moment might be going on over the battle-field. Was the conflict +still continuing? Had the French reserves been brought up? Had they, +too, been thrown back, beaten and disordered? and where was the fourth +corps under the Prince Napoleon? They were forty thousand strong--could +they have arrived in time from the Po? All these casualties, and many +others, did they talk over, but never once launching a doubt as to the +issue, or ever dreaming that the day was not to reverse all the late +past, and bring back the Austrians in triumph to Milan. + +As they sat, the Prefect of Police was announced and introduced. He +came with the list of the persons who were to be arrested and sent to +prison--they were one hundred and eighteen, some of them among the first +families of Rome--so soon as certain tidings of the victory arrived, and +the game of reaction might be safe to begin. + +“No news yet, Signor Prefetto! come back at ten,” said the Cardinal + +At ten he presented himself once more. The Cardinal and his friend were +taking coffee, but less joyous, it seemed, than before. At least they +looked anxious for news, and started at every noise in the street that +might announce new-come tidings. “We have heard nothing since you were +here,” said the Cardinal. “His Excellency thinks that, at a moment +of immense exigency, they may not have immediately bethought them of +sending off a despatch.” + +“There can be no doubt what the news will be when it comes,” said the +Envoy, “and I’d say, make the arrests at once.” + +“I don’t know; I’m not sure. I think I’d rather counsel a little more +patience,” said the Cardinal. “What if you were to come back at, let us +say, midnight.” The Prefect bowed, and withdrew. + +At midnight it was the same scene, only that the actors were more +agitated; the Envoy, at least, worked up to a degree of impatience that +bordered on fever; for while he persisted in declaring that the result +was certain, he continued to censure, in very-severe terms, the culpable +carelessness of those charged with the transmission of news. “Ah!” cried +he, “there it comes at last!” and a loud summons at the bell resounded +through the house. + +“A telegram, Eminence,” said the servant, entering with the despatch. +The Envoy tore it open: there were but two words,--“_Sanglante +déroute_.” + +The Cardinal took the paper from the hands of the overwhelmed and +panic-struck minister, and read it. He stood for a few seconds gazing on +the words, not a line or lineament in his face betraying the slightest +emotion; then, turning to the Envoy, he said, “Bon soir; allons dormir;” + and moved away with his usual quick little step, and retired. + +And all this time I have been forgetting the Italian fleet, which lies +yonder beneath me. The Garibaldi, that they took from the Neapolitans; +the Duca di Genova, the Maria Adelaide, and the Regina are there, all +screw-propellers of fifty guns each; the Etna, a steam-corvette; and +some six or seven old sailing craft, used as school ships; and, lastly, +the two cuirassée gunboats, Formidabile and Terribile, and which, with a +jealousy imitated from the French, no one is admitted on board of. +They are provided with “rams” under the water-line, and have a strange +apparatus by which about one-third of the deck towards the bow can be +raised, like the lid of a snuff-box, leaving the forepart of the ship +almost on a level with the water. Under what circumstances, and how, +this provision is to be made available, I have not the very vaguest +conception. + +These vessels were never intended as sea-going ships; and the batteries +are an exaggeration of the mistake in the Gloire, for even with the +slightest sea the ports must be closed. Besides this defect, they roll +abominably, and with a full head of steam on they cannot accomplish +seven knots. + +Turning from the ships to the harbour, I could not help thinking of +Sydney Smith’s remark on the Reform Club, “I prefer your room to your +company;” for, after all, what a sorry stud it is for such a magnificent +stable! It is but a beginning, you will say. True enough, and so is +everything just now here; but, except the Genoese, the Italians have few +real sailors. There are no deep-sea fisheries, and the small craft which +creep along close to shore are not the nurseries of seamen. The world, +however, has resolved, by a large vote, to be hopeful about Italy; and, +of course, she will have a fleet, as she will have all the trade of the +Levant, immensely productive mines, and vast regions of cotton. “What +for no?” as Meg Dodds says; but I can’t help thinking there are no +people in Europe so much alike as the Italians and the Irish; and I ask +myself, How is it that every one is so sanguine about the one, and +so hopeless about the other? Why do we hear of the capacity and the +intelligence of the former, and only of the latter what pertains to +their ignorance and their sloth? Oh! unjust generation of men! have +not my poor countrymen all the qualities you extol in these same +Peninsulars, plus a few others not to be disparaged? + + + + +THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. + +At the Croce di Malta, where we stopped--the Odessa, we heard, +was atrociously bad--we met a somewhat depressed countryman, whose +familiarity with place and people was indicated by several little +traits. He rebuked the waiter for the salad oil, and was speedily +supplied with better; he remonstrated about the wine, and a superior +“cru” was served the day following. The book of the arrivals, too, was +brought to him each day as he sat down to table, and he grunted out, +I remember, in no very complimentary fashion as he read our names, +“Nobodies.” + +My Garibaldian friend had gone over to Massa, so that I found myself +alone with this gentleman on the night of my arrival; for, when the +company of the _table-d’hôte_ withdrew, he and I were discovered, as the +stage-people say, seated opposite to each other at the fire. + +It blew hard without; the sea beat loudly on the shingly shore, and +even sent some drifts of spray against the windows; while within doors +a cheerful wood-fire blazed on the ample hearth, and the low-ceilinged +room did not look a whit the worse that it suggested snugness instead +of splendour. I had got my cup of coffee and my cognac on a little table +beside me; and while I filled the bowl of my pipe, I bethought me how +cheap and come-at-able are often the materials of our comfort, if one +had but the prudence which ignores all display. My companion, apparently +otherwise occupied in thought, sat gazing moodily at the fire, and to +all seeming unaware of my presence. + +“Will my smoking annoy you, sir?” asked I, as I was ready to begin. + +“No,” said he, without looking up. “I’d like to know where one could go +to live nowadays if it did.” + +“Very true,” said I; “the practice is almost universal” + +“So is child-murder, so is profane swearing, so is wearing a beard, and +poisoning by strychnine.” + +I was somewhat struck by his enumeration of modern atrocities, and I +said, in a tone intended to invite converse, “You are no admirer, then, +of what some are fain to call progress?” + +He started, and, turning a fierce sharp glance on me, said, “I’d rather +you’d touch me with that hot poker there, sir, than hurl that hateful +word at my ears. If there’s a thing I hate the most, it’s what cant--a +vile modern slang--calls ‘Progress.’ You’re just in the spot at this +moment to mark one of its high successes. Do you know Spezia?” “Not in +the least; never was here before.” “Well, sir, I have known it, I’ll not +stop to count how many years; but I knew it when that spot yonder, where +you see that vile tall chimney, with its tail of murky smoke, was a +beautiful little villa, all overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where +you perceive that red glare--the flame of a smelting furnace--there was +an orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse +stood, on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, +turn to this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four +main lines, cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen +timber, with swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the +other, led--ay, and not four years ago--along the margin of the sea, +with a forest of chestnuts on the other side, two lines of acacias +forming a shade along it, so that in the mid-day of an Italian July you +might walk it in delicious shadow. In the Gulf itself the whole scene +was mirrored, and not a headland, nor rock, nor cliff, that was not +pictured below. It was, in a word, a little paradise; nor were the +people all unworthy of their lovely birthplace. They were a quiet, +civil, obliging, simple-minded set--if not inviting strangers to settle +amongst them, never rude or repelling to them; equitable in dealings, +and strange to all disturbance or outrage. What they are now is no more +easy to say than what a rivulet is when a torrent has carried away its +banks and swept its bed. Two thousand navvies, the outsweepings of jails +and the galleys, have come down to the works; a horde of contractors, +sub-contractors, with the several staffs of clerks, inspectors, and +suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its beauty, uprooting its +repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and converting the very gem +of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp--a vast amphitheatre, where +liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul miasma, centrifugal pumps, +and tertian fevers, fight all day for the mastery. And for what?--for +what? To fill the pockets of knavish ministers and thieving +officials--to make an arsenal that will never be finished, for a fleet +that will never be built.” My companion, it is needless to say, was no +optimist; but the strange point was, that while he was unsparing of his +censure on Cavour and the “Piedmontese party,” he was no apologist for +the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he launched out +freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and corruption, and +freely corroborated our own Premier’s assertions, by calling the Pope’s +the “worst government in Europe.” In fact, he showed very clearly that +the smaller states of Italy were well or ill administered in the direct +ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal interference,--Modena being +the worst, and Tuscany the best of them. + +Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went--for he not +merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the +characters and tempers of the leading Italians--yet, with all this, I +could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy, +and yet did not like the new, what he did wish for? + +“I have my theory on that subject, sir,” said he; “nor am I the less +enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt +it.” + +“It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose,” said I; +“Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers.” + +“Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you +did.” + +I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial +concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy. + +“I’d unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a +small circle around Rome, are not Latins--they are Greeks. I’d bring +them back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with +craft and subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they’d not +cheat the ‘Hellenes’ as they do the French and the English; and as the +only true way to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I’d unite +them to a race that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What +is it, I ask you, makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, +the prudent, hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States? +Simply the fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no +longer serves him. The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and +Paddy must use his hands instead of his head. The same would happen with +the Italian. Give him a Greek master, and you’ll see what he’ll become.” + +“But the Greeks, after all,” said I, “do not present such a splendid +example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands.” + +“And don’t you see why?” broke he in. “Have you ever looked into a +gambling-house when the company had no ‘pigeon,’ and were obliged to +play against each other. They have lost all decency--all the semblance +of good manners and decorum. Whatever little politeness they had put +on to impose upon the outsider was gone, and there they were in all the +naked atrocity of their bad natures. It is thus you see the Greeks. You +have dropped in upon them unfairly; you have invaded a privacy they had +hoped might be respected. Give them a nation to cheat, however; let +the pigeon be introduced, and you’ll not see a better bred and a more +courtly people in Europe.” + +That they had great social qualities he proceeded to show from a number +of examples. They were, in fact, in the world of long ago what the +French are to our own day, and there was no reason to suppose that +the race had lost its old characteristics. According to my companion’s +theory, Force had only its brief interval of domination anywhere; the +superior intelligence was sure to gain the upper hand at last; and +we, in our opposition to this law, were supply retarding an inevitable +tendency of nature--protracting the fulfilment of what we could not +prevent. + +I got him back from these speculations to speak of himself, and he told +me some experiences which will, perhaps, account for the displeasure +with which he regards the changed fortunes of Spezia. I shall give +his narrative as nearly as I can in his own words, and in a chapter to +itself. + + + + +THE STRANGE MAN’S SORROW. + +“When I first knew Spezia, it was a very charming spot to pass the +summer in. The English had not found it out A bottle of Harvey sauce or +a copy of ‘Galignani’ had never been seen here; and the morning meal, +which now figures in my bill as ‘Dejeuner complet--two francs.’ was then +called ‘Coffee,’ and priced twopence. I used to pass my day in a small +sail-boat, and in my evenings I played halfpenny whist with the judge +and the commander of the forces and a retired envoy, who, out of a +polite attention to me as a stranger, agreed to play such high stakes +during my sojourn at the Baths. + +“They were excellent people, of unblemished character, and a politeness +I have rarely seen equalled. Nobody could sneeze without the whole +company rising to wish him a long and prosperous life, or a male heir +to his name; and as for turning the trump card without a smile and a bow +all round to the party, it was a thing unheard of. + +“I thought if I could only secure a spot to live in in such an Arcadia, +it would be charming, but this was a great difficulty. No one had any +accommodation more than he wanted for himself. The very isolation that +gave the place its charm excluded all speculation, and not a house was +to be had. In my voyagings, however, around the Gulf, I landed one +day at a little inlet, surrounded with high lands, and too small to +be called a bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a +small villa. It looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, +and where you take off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs +are made and the rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one +side and an orangery at the other, and it all looked the neatest and +prettiest little thing one ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I +drew my boat on shore and strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not +even a dog. There was a deep well with a draw-bucket, and I filled my +gourd with ice-cold water; and then plucking a ripe orange that had just +given me a bob in the eye, I sat down to eat it. While I was engaged, I +heard a wicket open and shut, and saw an old man, very shabbily dressed, +and with a mushroom straw hat, coming towards me. Before I could make +excuses for my intrusion, he had welcomed me to Pertusola--‘The Nook,’ +in English--and invited me to step in and have a glass of wine. + +“I took him for the steward or fattore, and acceded, not sorry to ask +some questions about the villa and its owner. He showed me over the +house, explaining with much pride how a certain kitchen-range came from +England, though nobody ever knew the use of it, but it was all very +comfortable. The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more +space, and contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would +have approved of. Yet there were capabilities--great capabilities; +and so, before I left, I took it from the old gentleman in the +rusty costume, who turned out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the +‘commendatore’ of I don’t know what order, and various other dignities +beside, all recited and set forth in the lease. + +“I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved +the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn’t an island, but it was +all but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock +denied access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable +pine wood to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that +even now, when I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire +of an evening, I just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through +its olive groves, or watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara +mountains. + +“I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got +flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little +plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses, +so that the Queen--she was at Spezia for the bathing--came once to see +my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was as +gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in +their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with +enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times +as inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and +its quality--was it a spring--did it ever fail--and when, and how? Then +as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? What the +anchorage was like--mud--and why mud? And when I said there was always +a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, why? and I did +explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, which acted +as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back to verify +my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining everything, +and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to experience +the currents of air. ‘You are right,’ said he, as he got into his boat, +‘quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a smelting-furnace.’ + +“I thought it odd praise at the time, but before six months I received +notice to quit. + +“Pertusola had been sold to a lead company, one of the directors having +strongly recommended the site as an admirable harbour, with good water, +and a perpetual draught of wind, equal to a blast-furnace.” + +Looking at the dress-coat in which you once captivated dinner-parties, +on a costeimonger--seeing the strong-boned hunter that has carried you +over post and rail, in a cab,--are sore trials; but nothing, according +to my companion’s description, to the desecration of your house and home +by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the “Inferno,” too, +pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its flash, +and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the passionate +warmth with which he described it. + +“They had begun that chimney, sir,” cried he, “before I got out of the +house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they +were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see +the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the +place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can +see on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no +depth to anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in +stillness. No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, +I must be brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn’t been +eight months there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and +four persons in plain clothes landed from her, and pottered about the +shore--I thought looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my +house, and asked permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace. +I acceded, and in they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do +you think he was? The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran +cold when I saw him. + +“‘You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,’ said he to me, coolly. + +“‘Yes, and I might have been living there still,’ replied I, ‘if it +had not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak +enough to be polite.’ + +“He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, +passed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, +and I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; +for not only did he describe the exact measurements between various +points, but the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the +currents, and the prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by +running out a pier here, and a breakwater there--by filling up this, and +deepening that--safe anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while +the headlands could be easily fortified, and ‘at a moderate cost,’ I +quote himself, ‘of say twenty two or three millions of francs, while a +fort erected on the island there would command the whole entrance.’ + +“‘And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?’ cried I; for, +as they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly. + +“He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, +‘Who knows? the French perhaps--perhaps your own people one of these +days.’ + +“I’d like to have said, but I didn’t, ‘We could walk in and walk out +here, with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with +a mackintosh.’ + +“They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf +and dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man--he looked +exactly like an owl--said, with a little grin, ‘We’re going to disturb +you again.’ + +“‘How so?’ cried I; ‘you can’t smelt lead here.’ + +“‘No, but we’re going to make an arsenal. Where you stand now will be a +receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You’ll have to +clear out before the New Year.’ + +“‘Who is he? who is that with the spectacles?’ asked I of one of the +servants, who waited outside with cloaks and umbrellas. + +“‘That’s the Conte di Cavour,’ said the fellow, haughtily; and thus was +the whole murder out at once. They turned me out, sir, in two months, +and I never ventured to take a lease of a place till he died. After that +event, I purchased a little spot on the island of Tino yonder, and built +myself a cottage. They could neither smelt metal nor build a ship there, +and I hugged myself at the thought of safety. But, would you believe +it? last week--only last week--his successor, in rummaging over Cavour’s +papers in the Foreign Office, comes upon a packet labelled ‘Spezia,’ and +discovers a memorandum in these words, ‘The English Admiral, at dinner +to-day, laughed at the idea of defending the mouth of the Gulf from +the island. He said the entrance should be two-thirds closed by a +breakwater, and a strong fort _à fleur d’eau_ built on Tino. I have +thought of it all night; he is perfectly right, and I’ll do it;’ and +here, sir,” said my companion, drawing a paper from his pocket, “is a +‘sommation’ from the minister to surrender my holding on Tino, receiving +a due compensation for the same, and once more betake myself, heaven +knows where; for, though the great Count Cavour is dead and gone, +his grand intentions are turning up every day, out of drawers and +pigeonholes, and I shrewdly suspect that neither Pio Nono nor myself +will live to see the last of them.” + + + + +ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. + +My Garibaldian friend has returned, but only to bid me good-bye and be +off again. The Government, it would seem, are rather uneasy as to the +movements of the “Beds,” and quietly intimated to my friend that +they were sure he had something particular to do--some urgent private +affairs--at Geneva; and, like the well-bred dog in the story, he does +not wait for any further suggestions, but goes at once. + +He revenged himself, however, all the time at breakfast, by talking very +truculently before the waiters of what would happen when Garibaldi took +the field again, and how miserably small Messrs Batazzi & Co. would look +under the circumstances. Indeed, as he warmed with his subject, he +went the length of declaring that, without a very ample apology for the +events of Aspromonte, he did not believe Garibaldi would consent to take +Venice, or drive the French out of Rome. + +With a spirit of tantalising he prolonged this same breakfast for +upwards of two hours, during which the officer of the gendarmerie came +and went, and came again, very eager to see him depart, but evidently +with instructions neither to molest nor interfere with him. + +“Just look at that beggar,” cried the Garibaldian; “if he has come in +here once during the last hour, he has come a dozen times, and all on my +account! And I mean to smoke three ‘cavours’ over my anisetto before I +leave. Waiter, tell the vetturino he’ll have plenty of time to throw +a feed to his cattle before I start. You know,” added he, “if I was +disposed to be troublesome, I’d not budge: I’d write up to Turin to the +Legation and claim British protection; and I’d have these fellows on the +hip, for they stupidly gave me a reason for my expulsion. They said I +was conspiring. Now I could say, Prove it; and if we only went to law, +it would take ten or twelve years to decide it.” + +My companion now went on to show that, by a small expenditure of money +and a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity, a lawsuit need never end +in Italy. “First of all, you could ask the opposite party, Who was his +advocate? and on his naming him, you could immediately set to work to +show that this man was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with +the commonest pretension to honesty would dream of employing him. The +history of his father could be adduced, and any private little anecdotes +of his mother would find a favourable opportunity for mention. Though a +mere skirmish, if judiciously managed, this will occupy a week or two, +and at the same time serve to indicate that you mean to show fight; for +by this time the ‘Legale’s’ blood will be up, and he is certain to make +reprisals on _your_ man, so that for a month or so you and the other +principal are in the position of men who, having come out to fight +a duel, are first gratified with the spectacle of a row between the +seconds. However, at last it is arranged that the lawyers are worthy +of each other; and the next step is to demand the names of all the +witnesses. This opens a campaign of unlimited duration, for, as nobody +is rash enough to trust himself or his cause to real and _bonâ-fide_ +testimony, witnesses are usually selected amongst the most astute and +ready-witted persons of your acquaintance.” “Oh,” cried I, “this is a +little too strong, isn’t it?” “Let me give you an instance,” said he, +good-humouredly, and not in the least disposed to be displeased with my +expression of distrust. “Some time back an American gentleman took up +his abode for some weeks on the Chiaja at Naples, and in the same house +there lived an Italian, with whom, from frequently meeting on the stairs +and corridors, a sort of hat-touching acquaintance had grown up. At +length one day, as the American was passing hastily out, the Italian +accosted him with a courteous bow and smile, and said, ‘When will it be +your perfect convenience, signor, to repay me that little loan of two +hundred ducats it was my happy privilege to have lent you last month?’ + +“The American, astounded as he was, had yet patience to inquire whether +he had not mistaken him for another. + +“The other smiled somewhat reproachfully, as he said, ‘I trust, signor, +you are not disposed to ignore the obligation. You are the gentleman who +lives, I believe, on the second floor left?’ + +“‘Very true; I do live there, and I owe you nothing. I never borrowed a +carlino from you--I never spoke to you before; and if you ever take the +liberty to speak to me again, I’ll knock you down.’ + +“The Italian smiled again, not so blandly, perhaps, but as +significantly, and saying, ‘We shall see,’ bowed and retired. + +“The American thought little more of the matter till, going to the +Prefecture to obtain his visé for Borne, he discovered that his passport +had been stopped, and a detainer put upon him for this debt. He hastened +at once to his Minister, who referred him to the law-adviser of the +Legation for counsel. The man of law looked grave; he neither heeded the +angry denunciations of the enraged Yankee, nor his reiterated assurances +that the whole was an infamous fraud. He simply said, ‘The case is +difficult, but I will do my best.’ After the lapse of about a week, a +message came from the Prefect to say that the stranger’s passport was at +his service whenever he desired to have it. + +“‘I knew it would be so!’ cried the American, as he came suddenly upon +his lawyer in the street. ‘I was certain that you were only exaggerating +the difficulty of a matter that must have been so simple; for, as I +never owed the money, there was no reason why I should pay it.’ + +“‘It was a case for some address, notwithstanding,’ said the other, +shaking his head. + +“‘Address! fiddle-stick! It was a plain matter of fact, and needed +neither skill nor cunning. You of course showed that this fellow was a +stranger to me--that we had never interchanged a word till the day he +made this rascally demand?’ + +“‘I did nothing of the kind, sir. If I had put in so contemptible a +plea, you would have lost your cause. What I did was this: I asked what +testimony he could adduce as to the original loan, and he gave me the +name of one witness, a certain Count well known in this city, who was at +breakfast with him when you called to borrow this money, and who saw the +pieces counted out and placed in your hand.’ + +“‘You denounced this fellow as a perjurer?’ + +“‘Far from it, sir. I respect the testimony of a man of station and +family, and I would not insult the feelings of the Count by daring to +impugn it; but as the plaintiff had called only one witness to the loan, +I produced two just as respectable, just as distinguished, who saw you +repay the debt! You are now free; and remember, sir, that wherever +your wanderings lead you, never cease to remember that, whatever be +our demerits at Naples, at least we can say with pride, The laws are +administered with equal justice to all men!’” + +The entrance of the gendarme at this moment cut short the question I +was about to ask, whether I was to accept this story as a fact or as a +parable. + +“Here he comes again. Only look at the misery in the fellow’s face! and +you see he has his orders evidently enough; and he dare not hurry me. I +think I’ll have a bath before I start.” + +“It is scarcely fair, after all,” said I. “I suppose he wants to get +back to his one o’clock dinner.” + +“I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a +scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe--the most generous, the +most trustful, the most unsuspecting--make a brigadier of Gendarmerie of +him for three months, and he’ll come out scarcely a shade brighter than +the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! Do you know what our friend yonder +is at now?” + +“No. He appears to be trying to take a stain out of one of his yellow +gauntlets.” + +“No such thing. He is noting down your features--taking a written +portrait of you, as the man who sat at breakfast with me on a certain +morning of a certain month. Take my word for it, some day or other when +you purchase a hat too tall in the crown, or you are seen to wear your +whiskers a trifle too long or bushy, an intimation will reach you at +your hotel, that the Prefect would like to talk with you; the end of +which will be the question, ‘Whether there is not a friend you are most +anxious to meet in Switzerland, or if you have not an uncle impatient to +see you at Trieste?’ And yet,” added he, after a pause, “the Piedmontese +are models of liberality and legality in comparison with the officials +in the south. In Sicily, for instance, the laws are more corruptly +administered than in Turkey. I’ll tell you a case, which was, however, +more absurd than anything else. An English official, well known at +Messina, and on the most intimate terms with the Prefect, came back from +a short shooting-excursion he had made into the interior, half frantic +with the insolence of the servants at a certain inn. The proprietor +was absent, and the waiter and the cook--not caring, perhaps, to be +disturbed for a single traveller--had first refused flatly to admit him; +and afterwards, when he had obtained entrance, treated him to the worst +of food, intimating at the same time it was better than he was used +to, and plainly giving him to understand that on the very slightest +provocation they were prepared to give him a sound thrashing. Boiling +over with passion, he got back to Messina, and hastened to recount his +misfortunes to his friend in power. + +“‘Where did it happen?’ asked the hard-worked Prefect, with folly enough +on his hands without having to deal with the sorrows of Great Britons. + +“‘At Spalla deMonte.’ + +“‘When?’ + +“‘On Wednesday last, the 23d.’ + +“‘What do you want me to do with them?’ + +“‘To punish them, of course.’ + +“‘How--in what way?’ + +“‘How do I know? Send them to jail.’ + +“‘For how long?’ + +“‘A month if you can--a fortnight at least.’ + +“‘What are the names?’ asked the Prefect, who all this time continued to +write, filling up certain blanks in some printed formula before him. + +“‘How should I know their names? I can only say that one was the cook, +the other the waiter.’ + +“‘There!’ said the Prefect, tossing two sheets of printed and +written-over paper towards him--‘there! tell the landlord to fill in the +fellows’ names and surnames, and send that document to the Podesta. They +shall have four weeks, and with hard labour.’ + +“The Englishman went his way rejoicing. He despatched the missive, and +felt his injuries were avenged. + +“Two days after, however, a friend dropped in, and in the course of +conversation mentioned that he had just come from Spalla de Monte, where +he had dined so well and met such an intelligent waiter; ‘which, I own,’ +said he, ‘surprised me, for I had heard of their having insulted some +traveller last week very grossly.’ + +“The Englishman hurried off to the Prefecture. ‘We are outraged, +insulted, laughed at!’ cried he: ‘those fellows you ordered to prison +are at large. They mock your authority and despise it.’ + +“A mounted messenger was sent off at speed to bring up the landlord to +Messina, and he appeared the next morning, pale with fear and trembling. +He owned that the Prefect’s order had duly reached him, that he had +understood it thoroughly; ‘but, Eccellenza,’ said he, crying, ‘it was +the shooting season; people were dropping in every day. Where was I to +find a cook or a waiter? I must have closed the house if I parted with +them; so, not to throw contempt on your worship’s order, I sent two +of the stablemen to jail in their place, and a deal of good it will do +them.’” + +While I was laughing heartily at this story, my companion turned towards +the gendarme and said, “Have you made a note of his teeth? you see they +are tolerably regular, but one slightly overlaps the other in front.” + +“Signor Générale,” said the other, reddening, “I’ll make a note of +_your_ tongue, which will do quite as well.” + +“Bravo!” said the Garibaldian; “better said than I could have given you +credit for. I’ll not keep you any longer from your dinner. Will you bear +me company,” asked he of me, “as far as Chiavari? It’s a fine day, and +we shall have a pleasant drive.” + +I agreed, and we started. + +The road was interesting, the post-horses which we took at Borghetto +went well, and the cigars were good, and somehow we said very little to +each other as we went. + +“This is the real way to travel,” said my companion; “a man to smoke +with and no bother of talking; there’s Chiavari in the hollow.” + +I nodded, and never spoke. + +“Are you inclined to come on to Genoa?” + +“No.” + +And soon after we parted--whether ever to meet again or not is not so +easy to say, nor of very much consequence to speculate on. + + + + +THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. + +There is scarcely any better measure of the amount of comfort a man +enjoys than in the sort of things of which he makes grievances. When +the princess in the Eastern story passed a restless night on account of +the rumpled rose-leaf she lay on, the inference is, that she was not, +like another character of fiction, accustomed to “lie upon straw.” + +Thus thinking, I was led to speculate on what a happy people must +inhabit the British Islands, seeing the amount of indignation and +newspaper wrath bestowed upon what is called the Organ Nuisance. Now, +granting that it is not always agreeable to have a nasal version of the +march in ‘William Tell,’ ‘Home, sweet Home,’ or ‘La Donna è mobile,’ +under one’s window at meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker +hours of headache, surely the nation which cries aloud over this as a +national calamity must enjoy no common share of Fortune’s favour, and +have what the Yankees call a “fine time” here below. + +Scarcely a week, however, goes over without one of these persecutors of +British ears being brought up to justice, and some dreary penny-a-liner +appears to prosecute in the person of a gentleman of literary pursuits, +whose labours, like those of Mr Babbage, may be lost to the world, if +the law will not hunt down the organs, and cry “Tally high-ho” to the +“grinders.” + +It might be grave matter of inquiry whether the passing annoyance +of ‘Cherry ripe’ was not a smaller infliction than some of the tiresome +lucubrations it has helped to muddle; and I half fancy I’d as soon +listen to the thunder as drink the small beer it has soured into +vinegar. + +However, as the British Public is resolved on making it a grievance, and +as some distinguished statesman has deemed it worth his while to devise +a bill for its suppression, it is in vain to deny that the evil is one +of magnitude. England has declared she will not be ground down by the +Savoyard, and there is no more to be said of it. + +A great authority in matters of evasion once protested that he would +engage to drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament that ever +was framed, and I believe him. So certain is language to be too wide or +too narrow--to embrace too much, and consequently fail in +distinctness, or to include too little, and so defeat the attempt to +particularise--that it does not call for more than an ordinary amount of +acuteness to detect the flaws of such legislation. Then, when it comes +to a discussion, and amendments are moved, and some honourable gentleman +suggests that after the word “Whereas” in section 93 the clause should +run “in no case, save in those to be hereafter specified,” &c., there +comes a degree of confusion and obscurity that invariably renders +the original parent of the measure unable to know his offspring, and +probably intently determined to destroy it. That in their eagerness for +law-making the context of these bills is occasionally overlooked, one +may learn from the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as +the punishment of a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that +one-half of the sum should go to the county, one-half to the informer. +Parliament, however, altered the law, but overlooked the context. +Imprisonment with hard labour was decreed as the penalty of the offence, +and the clause remained--“one-half to the county, one-half to the +informer.” + +A Judge of no mean acuteness, the Chief Baron O’Grady, once declared, +with respect to an Act against sheep-stealing, that after two careful +readings he could not decide whether the penalties applied to the +owner, of the sheep, the thief, or the sheep itself, for that each +interpretation might be argumentatively sustained. + +How will you suppress the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits +of a man’s domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his +area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the ‘Hat-catcher’s Daughter’ +because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by ‘Sich +a gettin’ up stairs’ because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long +may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his +barrels--the dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how +long or how loud the grand chorus in ‘Nabucco’ should be performed? What +endless litigation will be instituted by any attempt to provide for +all these and a score more of similar casualties, not to speak of the +insolent persecution that may be practised by the performance of tunes +of a party character. Fancy Dr Wiseman composing a pastoral to the air +of ‘Croppies, lie down,’ or the Danish Minister writing a despatch to +the inspiriting strains of ‘Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.’ There +might come a time, too, when ‘Sie sollen ihm nicht haben’ might grate on +a French ambassador’s ears. Can your Act take cognisance of all these? + +I see nothing but inextricable confusion in the attempt--confusion, +difficulty, and defeat. There will be an Act, and an Act to amend that +Act, and another Act to alter so much of such an Act, and then a final +Act to repeal them all; so that at last the mover of a bill on the +subject will be the greatest “organ nuisance” that the world has yet +heard of. + +It was “much reflecting” over these things, as my Lord Brougham says, +that I sauntered along the Riviera from Genoa, and came to the little +town of Chiavari, with its long sweep of yellow beach in front and its +glorious grove of orange-trees behind--sure, whether the breeze came +from land or sea, to inhale health and perfume. There is a wide old +Piazza in the centre of the town, with a strange, dreary sort of inn +with a low-arched entrance, under whose shade sit certain dignitaries of +the place of an evening, sipping their coffee and talking over what they +imagine to be the last news of the day. From these “Conscript Fathers” I +learned that Chiavari is the native place of the barrel-organ, that +from this little town go forth to all the dwellers in remotest lands +the grinders of the many-cylindered torment, the persecutor of the +prose-writer, the curse of him who calculates. Just as the valleys of +Savoy supply white-mice men, and Lucca produces image-carriers, so does +Chiavari yield its special product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, +in their ambitions, have attempted the “industry,” but they have +egregiously failed; and Chiavari remains as distinctive in its product +as Spitalfields for its shawls, or Dresden for its china. Whether there +may be some peculiarity in the biceps of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar +development which imparts power to his performance, I know not. I am +forced to own that I have failed to discover to what circumstance or +from what quality this excellence is derivable; but there is the fact, +warranted and confirmed by a statistical return, that but for Chiavari +we should have no barrel-organs. + +“Never imagine,” said a wise prelate, “that you will root Popery out of +England till you destroy Oxford. If you want to get rid of the crows, +you must pull down the rookery.” The words of wisdom flashed suddenly +over my mind as I walked across the silent Piazza at midnight; and I +exclaimed--“Yes! here is the true remedy for the evil. With two hours +of a gunboat and four small Armstrongs the thing is done; batter down +Chiavari, and Bab-bage will bless you with his last breath. Pull down +the cookery, and crush the young rooks in the ruins. Smash the cradle +and the babe within it, and you need not fear the man!” + +There is a grand justice in the conception that is highly elevating. +There is something eminently fine in making Chiavari, like the Cities +of the Plain, a monument over its own iniquity. Leave not one stone upon +another of it, and there will be peace in our homes and stillness in our +streets. No more shall the black-bearded tormentor terrorise over Baker +Street, or lord it in the Edgeware Road. + +Commander Snort of the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate +not only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the +inhabitant of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you +will no longer need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here +is what the age especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness +with efficiency. It may be said that we have no more right to destroy +Chiavari than Kagosima, but that question is at least debatable. Are not +the headaches of tens of thousands of more avail than the head of one? +What becomes of that noble principle, the greatest happiness of the +greatest number? The Italians, too, might object: true, but they are +neither Americans nor French. They come into the category of states that +may be bullied. The countries which have an extended seaboard and weak +naval armaments are like people with a large glass frontage and no +shutters. There is nothing to prevent us shying a stone at the Italian +window as we pass up to Constantinople, even though we run away +afterwards. I repeat, therefore, the plan is feasible. As to its +cheapness, it would not cost a tithe of what we spent in destroying the +tea-tray fortifications of Satsuma; and as we have a classic turn for +monuments, a pyramid of barrel-organs in Charing Cross might record to a +late posterity the capture of Chiavari. + +I am not without a certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel +it is a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on +these organ fellows--for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, +the type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our +boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a “Grind” in the world as +Locke King, and his motion for Reform? What do you say to “Rest and be +thankful,” and, above all, what to the “Peace-at-any-price people”? + +Is ‘Cherry ripe’ more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled +on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? +In all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a +Foreign Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against +these. Bring up John Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the +neighbourhood of Birmingham, by insane accusations against his own +country and laudations of America, and I doubt if you could find a +magistrate on the bench to commit him; and will you tell me that the +droning whine of ‘Garibaldi’s March’ is worse than this? As to the +_Civis Romanus_ cant, it is too painful to dwell on, now that we are +derided, ridiculed, and sneered at from Stockholm to Stamboul. Like +Canning’s philanthropist, we have been asking every one for his story; +never was there a soul so full of sympathy for sorrow. We have heard the +tale of Italy, the sufferings of the Confederates, the crying wrongs +of Poland, and the still more cruel, because less provoked, trials of +Denmark. We have thrown up hands and eyes--sighed, groaned, wept; we +have even denounced the ill-doers, and said, What a terrible retribution +awaited them! but, like our great prototype, when asked for assistance, +we have said, + +“I’ll see you ------ first.” + +Let us be merciful, therefore, and think twice before we batter down +Chiavari. The organ nuisance is a bore, no doubt; but what are the most +droning ditties that ever addled a weary head, compared to the tiresome +grind of British moral assistance, and the greatness of that _Civis +Romanus_ who hugs his own importance and helps nobody? + + + + +R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D’INDUSTRIE OF OUR DAY. + +I was struck the other day by an account of an application made to the +Lord Mayor of London by a country clergyman, to give, as a warning to +others, publicity to a letter he had just received from the East. The +clergyman, it seems, had advertised in the ‘Times’ for pupils, and gave +for address a certain letter of the Greek alphabet. To this address +there came in due time an answer from a gentleman, dated Constantinople, +stating that he was an Anglo-Indian on his way to England, to place +his two sons in an educational establishment; but that having, by +an excursion to Jerusalem, exhausted his immediate resources, he was +obliged to defer the prosecution of his journey till the arrival of some +funds he expected from India--certain to arrive in a month or two. +Not wishing, however, to delay the execution of his project, and being +satisfied with the promises held forth by the advertiser, he purposed +placing his sons under his care, and to do so, desired that forty pounds +might be remitted him at once, to pay his journey to England, for which +convenience he, the writer, would not alone be obliged, but also extend +his patronage to the lender, by recommending him to his friend Sir Hugh +Rose, who was himself desirous of sending his sons to be educated in +England. The address of a banker was given to whom the money should be +remitted, and an immediate reply requested, or “application should be +made in some other quarter.” + +Now, the clergyman did not answer this strange appeal, but he inserted +another advertisement, changing, however, the symbol by which he was +to be addressed, and appearing in this way to be a different person. To +this new address there came another letter, perfectly identical in style +and matter: the only change was, that the writer was now at the Hôtel +de la Reine d’Angleterre at Buda; but all the former pledges of future +protection were renewed, as well as the request for a prompt reply, or +“application will be made in another quarter.” + +The clergyman very properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, +with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, +against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The +strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the +offender; nor was there in the ‘Times,’ or in the other newspapers where +the circumstances were detailed, one single surmise as to the identity +of this ingenious individual. It is the more singular, since this man +is a specialty--an actual personification of some of the very subtlest +rogueries of the age we live in! + +If any of my readers can recall a very remarkable exposure the ‘Times’ +newspaper made some ten or twelve years ago, of a most shameful fraud +practised upon governesses, by which they were induced to deposit a sum +equivalent to their travelling expenses from England to some town on the +Continent, as a guarantee to the employer, they will have discovered +the gentleman with the two sons to be educated--the traveller in Syria, +the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, the Anglo-Indian who expects eight hundred +pounds in two months, but has a present and pressing necessity for +forty. + +The governess fraud was ingenious. It was done in this way: An +advertisement appeared in the ‘Times,’ setting forth that an English +gentleman, travelling with his family abroad, wanted a governess--the +conditions liberal, the requirements of a high order. The family +in question, who mixed with the very best society on the Continent, +required that the governess should be a lady of accomplished manners, +and one in every respect qualified for that world of fashion to which +she would be introduced as a member of the advertiser’s family. The +advertiser, however, found that all the English ladies who had hitherto +filled this situation in his family had, through the facilities thus +presented them of entrance into life, made very advantageous marriages; +and to protect himself against the loss entailed by the frequent call on +him for travelling expenses--bringing out new candidates for the hands +of princes and grand-dukes--he proposed that the accepted governess +should deposit with him a sum--say fifty pounds--equivalent to the +charge of the journey; and which, if she married, should be confiscated +to the benefit of her employer. + +The scheme was very ingenious; it was, in fact, a lottery in which you +only paid for your ticket when you had drawn a prize. Till the lucky +number turned up, you never parted with your money. Was there ever any +such bribe held forth to a generation of unmarried and marriageable +women? There was everything that could captivate the mind: the tour +on the Continent--the family who loved society and shared it so +generously--the father so parental in his kindness, and who evidently +gave the governess the benediction of a parent on the day she may have +married the count; and all secured for what--for fifty pounds? No; but +for the deposit, the mere storing up of fifty pounds in a strong box; +for if, after two years, the lady neither married nor wished to remain, +she could claim her money and go her way. + +The success was immense; and as the advertiser wrote replies from +different towns to different individuals, governesses arrived at +Brussels, at Coblentz, at Frankfort, at Mayence, at Munich, at Nice--and +heaven knows where besides--whose deposits were lodged in the hands of +N. F. That ingenious gentleman straightway departed, and was no more +seen, and only heard of when the distress and misery of these unhappy +ladies had found their way to the public press. The ‘Times,’ with all +that ability and energy it knows how to employ, took the matter up, +published some of the statements--very painful and pathetic they +were--of the unfortunate victims of this fraud, and gave more than +one “leader” to its exposure. Nor was the Government wanting in proper +activity. Orders were sent out from the Foreign Office to the different +legations and consulates abroad, to warn the police in the several +districts against the machinations of this artful scoundrel, should he +chance to be in their neighbourhood. Even more distinct instructions +were sent out to certain legations, by which R. N. F. could be arrested +on charges that would at least secure his detention till the law +officers had declared what steps could be taken in his behalf. It was +not the age of photography, but a very accurate description of the +man’s appearance and address was furnished, and his lofty stature, +broad chest, burly look, and bushy whiskers--a shade between red and +auburn--were all duly posted in each Chancellerie of the Continent. + +For a while it seemed as if he lived in retirement--his late success +enabled this to be an “elegant retirement”--and it is said that he +passed it on the Lake of Como, in a villa near that of the once Queen +Caroline. There are traditions of a distinguished stranger--a man of +rank and a man of letters--who lived there estranged from all the +world, and deeply engaged in the education of his two sons. One of these +youths, however, not responding to all this parental devotion, involved +himself in some scrape, fled from his father’s roof, and escaped into +Switzerland. N. F., as soon as he could rally from the first shock of +the news, hastened after, to bring him back, borrowing a carriage from a +neighbouring nobleman in his haste. With this he crossed the frontier +at Chiasso, but never to come back again. The coachman, indeed, brought +tidings of the sale of the equipage, which the illustrious stranger had +disposed of, thus quitting a neighbourhood he could only associate with +a sorrowful past, and a considerable number of debts into the bargain. +Another blank occurs here in history, which autobiography alone perhaps +could fill. It would be unfair and un-philosophical to suppose that +because we cannot trace him he was inactive: we might as reasonably +imply that the moon ceased to move when we lost sight of her. At all +events, towards the end of autumn of that last year of the war in the +Crimea, a stout, well-dressed, portly man, with an air of considerable +assurance, swaggered into the Chancellerie of her Majesty’s Legation at +Munich, notwithstanding the representations of the porter, who would, +if he had dared, have denied him admittance, and asked, in a voice of +authority, if there were no letters there for Captain F. The gentleman +to whom the question was addressed was an attaché of the Legation, and +at that time in “charge” of the mission, the Minister being absent. +Though young in years, F. could scarcely, in the length and breadth of +Europe, have fallen upon one with a more thorough insight into every +phase and form of those mysteries by which the F. category of men exist. +Mr L. was an actual amateur in this way, and was no more the man to be +angry with F. for being a swindler, than with Ristori for being Medea or +Macready being Macbeth. Not that he had the slightest suspicion at the +time of F.’s quality, as he assured him that there were no letters for +that name. + +“How provoking!” said the Captain, as he bit his lip. “They will be +so impatient in England,” muttered he to himself, “and I know Sidney +Herbert is sure to blame _me_.” Then he added aloud, “I am at a +dead-lock here. I have come from the Crimea with despatches, and +expected to find money here to carry me on to England; and these stupid +people at the War Office have forgotten all about it. Is it not enough +to provoke a saint?” + +“I don’t know; I never was a saint,” said the impassive attaché. + +“Well, it’s trying to a sinner,” said F., with a slight laugh; for +he was one of those happy-natured dogs who are not indifferent to the +absurd side of even their own mishaps. “How long does the post take to +England?” + +“Three days.” + +“And three back--that makes six; a week--an entire week.” + +“Omitting Sunday,” said the grave attaché, who really felt an interest +in the other’s dilemma. + +“All I can say is, it was no fault of mine,” cried F., after a moment. +“If I am detained here through their negligence, they must make the +best excuse they can. Have you got a cigar?” This was said with his eyes +fixed on a roll of Cubans on the table. + +“Take one,” said the other. + +“Thanks,” said F., as he selected three. “I’ll drop in to-morrow, and +hope to have better luck.” + +“How much money do you want?” asked Mr L. + +“Enough to carry me to London.” + +“How much is that?” + +“Let me see. Strasbourg--Paris, a day at Paris; Cowley might detain me +two days: fifteen or twenty pounds would do it amply.” + +“You shall have it.” + +“All right,” said F., who walked to the fire, and, lighting his cigar, +smoked away; while the other took some notes from a table-drawer and +counted them. + +“Shall I give you a formal receipt for this?” asked F. + +“You can tell them at the Office,” said L., as he dipped his pen into +the ink and continued the work he had been previously engaged in. F. +said a few civil words--the offhand gratitude of a man who was fully as +much in the habit of bestowing as of receiving favours, and withdrew. L. +scarcely noticed his departure; he was deep in his despatch, and wrote +on. At length he came to the happy landing-place, that spot of rest for +the weary foot--“I have the honour to be, my Lord,” and he arose and +stood at the fire. + +As L. smoked his cigar he reflected, and as he reflected he remembered; +and, to refresh his memory, he took out some papers from a pigeon-hole, +and at last finding what he sought, sat down to read it. The document +was a despatch, dated a couple of years back, instructing H.M.’s +representative at the Court of Munich to secure the person of a certain +N. F., and hold him in durance till application should be made to the +Bavarian Government for his extradition and conveyance to England. Then +followed a very accurate description of the individual--his height, +age, general looks, voice, and manner--every detail of which L. now saw +closely tallied with the appearance of his late visitor. + +He pondered for a while over the paper, and then looked at his watch. It +was five o’clock! The first train to Augsburg was to start at six. There +was little time, consequently, to take the steps necessary to arrest a +person on suspicion; for he should first of all have to communicate +with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who should afterwards back his +application to the Prefect of Police. The case was one for detail, +and for what the Germans insist upon, much writing--and there was very +little time to do it in. L., however, was not one to be easily defeated. + +If baffled in one road, he usually found out another. He therefore +wrote a brief note to the Minister, stating that he might require his +assistance at a later hour of the evening, and at a time not usually +official. This done, he despatched another note to Captain E. F., saying +familiarly it was scarcely worth while trying to catch the mail-train +that night, and that perhaps instead he would come over and take a +_tétè-à-tête_ dinner with him at the Legation. + +F. was overjoyed as he read it! No man ever felt a higher pleasure in +good company, nor knew better how to make it profitable. If he had been +asked to choose, he would infinitely rather have had the invitation to +dine than the twenty pounds he had pocketed in the morning. The cognate +men of the world--and all members of the diplomatic career are to a +certain extent in this category--were in F.’s estimation the “trump +cards” of the pack, with which he could “score tricks” innumerable, and +so he accepted at once; and, in a very few minutes after his acceptance, +made his appearance in a correct dinner-dress and a most unexceptionable +white tie. + +“Couldn’t refuse that pleasant offer of yours, L.” (he was familiar at +once, and called him L.), “and here I am!” said he, as he threw himself +into an easy-chair with all the bland satisfaction of one who looked +forward to a good dinner and a very enjoyable evening. + +“I am happy to have secured you,” said L., with a little laugh to +himself at the epigram of his phrase. “Do you like caviar?” + +“Delight in it!” + +“I have just got some fresh from St Petersburg, and our cook here is +rather successful in his caviar soup. We have a red trout from the +_Tegen See_, a saddle of Tyrol mutton, and a pheasant--_voilà votre +diner!_ but I can promise you a more liberal _carte_ in drinkables; just +say what you like in the way of wine!” + +F.’s face beamed over with ecstasy. It was one of the grand moments of +his life; and if he could, hungry as he was, he would have prolonged it! +To be there the guest of her Majesty’s mission; to know, to feel, that +the arms of England were over the door! that he was to be waited on +by flunkies in the livery of the Legation, fed by the cook who had +ministered to official palates, his glass filled with wine from +the cellar of him who represented royalty! These were very glorious +imaginings; and little wonder that F., whose whole life was a Poem in +its way, should feel that they almost overcame him. In fact, like the +woman in the nursery song, he was ready to exclaim, “This is none of +me!” but still there were abundant evidences around him that all was +actual, positive, and real. + +“By the way,” said L., in a light, careless way, “did you ever in your +wanderings chance upon a namesake of yours, only that he interpolates +another Christian name, and calls himself R. Napoleon F.?” + +The stranger started: the fresh, ruddy glow of his cheek gave way to +a sickly yellow, and, rising from his chair, he said, “Do you mean to +‘split’ on me, sir?” + +“I’m afraid, F.,” said the other, jauntily, “the thing looks ugly. You +are R. N. F.!” + +“And are you, sir, such a scoundrel--such an assassin--as to ask a man +to your table in order to betray him?” + +“These are strong epithets, F., and I’ll not discuss them; but if you +ask, Are you going to dine here today? I’d say, No. And if you should +ask, Where are, you likely to pass the evening? I’d hint, In the city +jail.” + +At this F. lost all command over himself, and broke out into a torrent +of the wildest abuse. He was strong of epithets, and did not spare +them. He stormed, he swore, he threatened, he vociferated; but L., +imperturbable throughout all, only interposed with an occasional mild +remonstrance--a subdued hint--that his language was less than polite or +parliamentary. At length the door opened, two gendarmes appeared, and N. +F. was consigned to their hands and removed. + +The accusations against him were manifold; from before and since the day +of the governesses, he had been living a life of dishonesty and fraud. +German law proceedings are not characterised by any rash impetuosity; +the initial steps in F.’s case took about eighteen months, during which +he remained a prisoner. At the end of this time the judges discovered +some informality in his committal; and as L. was absent from Munich, +and no one at the Legation much interested in the case, the man was +liberated on signing a declaration--to which Bavarian authorities, +it would seem, attach value--that he was “a rogue and a vagabond;” + confessions which the Captain possibly deemed as absurd an act of +“surplusage” as though he were to give a written declaration that he was +a vertebrated animal and a biped. + +He went forth once more, and, difficult as it appears to the +intelligence of honest and commonplace folk, he went forth to prosper +and live luxuriously--so gullible is the world, so ready and eager to +be cheated and deceived. Sir Edward Lytton has somewhere declared that +a single number of the ‘Times’ newspaper, taken at random, would be +the very best and most complete picture of our daily life--the fullest +exponent of our notions, wants, wishes, and aspirations. Not a hope, nor +fear, nor prejudice--not a particle of our blind trustfulness, or of our +as blind unbelief, that would not find its reflex in the broadsheet. R. +N. F. had arrived at the same conclusion, only in a more limited sense. +The advertisement columns were all to him. What cared he for foreign +wars, or the state of the Funds? as little did he find interest in +railway intelligence, or “our own correspondent.” What he wanted was, +the people who inquired after a missing relative--a long-lost son or +brother, who was supposed to have died in the Mauritius or Mexico: an +affectionate mother who desired tidings as to the burial-place of a +certain James or John, who had been travelling in a particular year in +the south of Spain: an inquirer for the will of Paul somebody: or +any one who could supply evidence as to the marriage of Sarah Meekins +_alias_ Crouther, supposed to have been celebrated before her Majesty’s +Vice-Consul at Kooroobakaboo--these were the paragraphs that touched +him. + +Never was there such a union of intelligence and sympathy as in him! He +knew everybody, and seemed not alone to have been known to, but actually +beloved by, every one. It was in _his_ arms poor Joe died at Aden. _He_ +gave away Maria at Tunis. He followed Tom to his grave at Corfu; and he +was the mysterious stranger who, on board the P. and O. boat, offered +his purse to Edward, and was almost offended at being denied. The way in +which this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines +of a newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was +wanting in the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at once +into his attributions. + +A couple of years ago, an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, passed +a winter at Rome with her daughter, and in the mixed society of that +capital made acquaintance with a Polish Count of most charming manners +and fascinating address. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and +ended in an attachment which led to the marriage of the young lady with +the distinguished exile. + +On arriving in England, however, it was discovered that the accomplished +Count was a common soldier, and a deserter from the Prussian army; and +means were accordingly had recourse to in order to obtain a divorce, and +the breach of a marriage accomplished under a fraudulent representation. +While the proceedings were but in the initiative, there came a letter +from Oneglia, near Nice, to the afflicted mother of the young lady, +recalling to her mind the elderly gentleman with the blue spectacles who +usually sat next her at the English Church at Rome. He was the writer of +the present letter, who, in turning over the columns of the ‘Times’ read +the melancholy story of her daughter’s betrayal and misery. By one of +those fortunate accidents more frequent in novels than in life, he had +the means of befriending her, and very probably of rescuing her from +her present calamity. He, the writer, had actually been present at the +wedding, and as a witness had signed the marriage-certificate of that +same _soi-disant_ Count Stanislaus Sobieski Something-or-other, at +Lemberg, in the year ‘49, and knew that the unhappy but deserted wife +was yet living. A certain momentary pressure of money prevented his +at once coming to England to testify to this fact; but if a small sum, +sufficient to pay a little balance he owed his innkeeper and wherewithal +to make his journey to England, were forwarded to the address of +Frederick Brooks, Esq., or lodged to his account at the Bank of French & +Co., Florence, he would at once hasten to London and depose formally +to every fact he had stated. By the merest accident I myself saw this +letter, which the lady had, for more accurate information about the +writer, sent to the banker at Florence, and in an instant I detected the +fine Roman hand of R. N. F. It is needless to say that this shot went +wide of the mark. + +But that this fellow has lived for upwards of twenty years, travelling +the Continent in every direction, eating and drinking at the best +hotels, frequenting theatres, cafés, and public gardens, denying himself +nothing, is surely a shame and a disgrace to the police of Europe, which +has been usually satisfied to pass him over a frontier, and suffer him +to continue his depredations on the citizens of another state. Of the +obloquy he has brought upon his own country I do not speak. We must, I +take it, have our scoundrels like other people; the only great grievance +here is, that the fellow’s ubiquity is such that it is hard to believe +that the swindler who walked off with the five watches from Hamburg is +the same who, in less than eight days afterwards, borrowed fifty ducats +from a waiter at Naples, and “bolted.” + +Of late I have observed he has dropped his second _prénom_ of Napoleon, +and does not call himself by it. There is perhaps in this omission a +delicate forbearance, a sense of refined deference to the other bearer +of that name, whom he recognises as his master. + +In the ingenuity of his manifold devices even religion has not escaped +him, and it would be impossible to count how often he has left the +“Establishment” for Rome, been converted, reconverted, reconciled, and +brought home again--always, be it noted, at the special charge of so +much money from the Church Fund, or a subscription from the faithful, +ever zealous and eager to assist a really devout and truly sincere +convert! + +That this man is an aspiring and ambitious vagabond may be seen in the +occasional raids he makes into the very best society, without having, at +least to ordinary eyes, anything to obtain in these ventures, beyond the +triumph of seeing himself where exposure and detection would be +certain to be followed by the most condign punishment. At Rome, for +instance--how, I cannot say--he obtained admission to the Duc de +Grammont’s receptions; and at Florence, under the pretext of being +a proprietor, and “a most influential” one, of the ‘Times,’ he +breakfasted, by special invitation, with Baron Ricasoli, and had a long +and most interesting conversation with him as to the conditions--of +course political--on which he would consent to support Italian unity. +These must have been done in pure levity; they were imaginative +excursions, thrown off in the spirit of those fanciful variations great +violinists will now and then indulge in, as though to say, “Is there a +path too intricate for me to thread, is there a pinnacle too fine for me +to balance on?” + +A great deal of this fellow’s long impunity results from the shame men +feel in confessing to have been “done” by him. Nobody likes the avowal, +acknowledging, as it does, a certain defect in discrimination, and a +natural reluctance to own to having been the dupe of one of the most +barefaced and vulgar rogues in Europe. + +There is one circumstance in this case which might open a very curious +psychological question; it is this: F.’s victims have not in general been +the frank, open, free-giving, or trustful class of men; on the contrary, +they have usually been close-fisted, cold, cautious people, who +weigh carefully what they do, and are rarely the dupes of their own +impulsiveness. F. is an Irishman, and yet his successes have been +far more with English--ay, even with Scotchmen--than with his own +countrymen. + +In part this may be accounted for by the fact that F. did not usually +present himself as one in utter want and completely destitute; his +appeal for money was generally made on the ground of some speculation +that was to repay the lender; it was because he knew “something to +your advantage” that he asked for that £10. He addressed himself, in +consequence, to the more mercantile spirit of a richer community--to +those, in fact, who, more conversant with trade, better understood the +meaning of an investment. + +But there was another, and, as I take it, a stronger and less fallible +ground for success. This fellow has, what all Irishmen are more or less +gifted with, an immense amount of vitality, a quality which undeniably +makes a man companionable, however little there may be to our taste in +his manner, his education, or his bearing. This same vitality imparts +itself marvellously to the colder temperaments of others, and gives out +its own warmth to natures that never of themselves felt the glow of an +impulse, or the glorious furnace-heat of a rash action. + +This was the magnetism he worked with. “Canny” Scotchmen and shrewd +Yankees--ay, even Swiss innkeepers--felt the touch of his quality. +There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, in its +apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, and +it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow so open and +unguarded. + +Now Paddy has seen a good deal of this at home, and could no more be +humbugged by it than he could believe a potato to be a truffle. + +F. was too perfect an artist ever to perform in an Irish part to an +Irish audience, and so he owes little or nothing to the land of his +birth. + +Apart from his unquestionable success, which of course settles the +question, I would not have called him a great performer--indeed, my +astonishment has always been how he succeeded, or with whom. + +“Don’t tell me of Beresford’s blunders,” said the Great Duke after +Albuera. “Did he beat Soult? if so, he was a good officer.” + +This man’s triumphs are some twenty odd years of expensive living, with +occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines +on venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of +the galleys, and his diet the black bread of a convict. + +The injury these men do in life is not confined to the misery their +heartless frauds inflict, for the very humblest and poorest are often +their victims: they do worse, in the way they sow distrust and suspicion +of really deserving objects, in the pretext they afford the miserly man +to draw closer his purse-strings, and “not be imposed on;” and, worst of +all, in the ill repute they spread of a nation which, not attractive by +the graces of manner or the charms of a winning address, yet cherished +the thought that in truthfulness and fair dealing there was not one +could gainsay it. + +As I write, I have just heard tidings of R. N. F. One of our most +distinguished travellers and discoverers, lately returning from Venice +to the South, passed the night at Padua, and met there what he described +as an Indian officer--Major Newton--who was travelling, he said, with a +nephew of Lord Palmer-ston’s. + +The Major was a man fall of anecdote, and abounded in knowledge of +people and places; he had apparently been everywhere with everybody, +and, with a communicativeness not always met with in old soldiers, gave +to the stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the +evening wore on, he told too how he was waiting there for a friend, +a certain N. F., who was no other than himself, the nephew of Lord +Palmerston being represented by his son, an apt youth, who has already +given bright promise of what his later years may develop. + +N. F. retired to bed at last, so much overcome by brandy-and-water that +my informant escaped being asked for a loan, which I plainly see he +would not have had the fortitude to have refused; and the following +morning he started so early that N. F., wide awake as he usually is, was +not vigilant enough to have anticipated. + +I hope these brief details, _pour servir à l’histoire de Monsieur R. N. +F._, may save some kind-hearted traveller from the designs of a thorough +blackguard, and render his future machinations through the press more +difficult to effect and more certain of exposure. + +I had scarcely finished this brief, imperfect sketch, when I read in +‘Galignani’ the following:-- + +“Swindling on the Continent.--A letter from Venice of March 29 gives us +the following piece of information which may still be of service to some +of our readers, though, from the fact with which it concludes, it +would seem that the proceedings, of the party have been brought to a +standstill, at least for some time. This is not, however, it may be +recollected, the first occasion we have had to bring the conduct of +the individual referred to under the notice of our readers for similar +practices:-- + +“‘I am informed that one Mr Newton, _alias_ Neville, _alias_ Fane, and +with a dozen other _aliases_, has been arrested at Padua for swindling. +This ubiquitous gentleman has been travelling for some years at the +expense of hotel-keepers, and other geese easily fleeced, on the +Continent In the year 1862, Mr Neville and his two sons made their +suspicious appearance at Venice, and they now, minus the younger son, +have visited Padua as Mr Robert N. Newton and son, taking up their +residence at the Stella d’Oro. They arrived without luggage and without +money, both of which had been lost in the Danube; but they expected +remittances from India! The obliging landlord lent money, purchased +clothes, fed them gloriously, and contrived, between the 8th Feb. +and 25th of March, to become the creditor of Newton and son for 1000 +swanzig. The expenses continued, but the remittances never came. +The patient landlord began to lose that virtue, and denounced these +_aliases_ as swindlers. The police of Vienna, hearing of the event, sent +information that these two accommodating gentlemen had practised the +victimising art for two months in December last at the Hotel Regina +Inghilterre, at Pesth, run up a current account of 700 florins, and +decamped; and a hotel-keeper recognised the scamps as having re-resided +at the Luna, in Venice, in 1862, and “plucked some profit from that +pale-faced moon.” Mr Newton’s handwriting proved him to be in 1863 +one Major Fane, who had generously proposed to bring all his family, +consisting of ten persons, to pass the winter at the Barbesi Hotel at +Venice, if the proprietor would forward him 700 fr., as, owing to his +wife’s prolonged residence at Rome and Naples, he was short of money, +which, however, he expected, would cease on the arrival of supplies from +Calcutta. These gentlemen are now in durance vile, and there is no +doubt but that this letter will lead to their recognition by many other +victims.’” + +Let no sanguine enthusiast for the laws of property imagine, however, +that this great man’s career is now ended, and that R. N. F. will no +more go forth as of old to plunder and to rob. Imprisonment for debt is +a grievous violation of personal liberty certainly, but it is finite; +and some fine morning, when the lark is carolling high in heaven, and +the bright rivulets are laughing in the gay sunlight, R. N. F. will +issue from his dungeon to taste again the sweets of liberty, and to +partake once more of the fleshpots of some confiding landlord. F. is a +man of great resources, doubtless. When he repeats a part, he feels +the same sort of repugnance that Fechter would to giving a fiftieth +representation of Hamlet, but he would bow to the necessity which a +clamorous public imposes, however his own taste might rebel against the +dreariness of the task. Still, I feel assured that he will next appear +in a new part. We shall hear of him--that is certain. He will be in +search of a lost will, by which he would inherit millions, or a Salvator +Rosa that he has been engaged to buy for the Queen, or perhaps he will +be a missionary to assist in that religious movement now observable in +Italy. How dare I presume, in my narrow inventiveness, to suggest to +such a master of the art as he is? I only know that, whether he comes +before the world as the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, a proprietor of the +‘Times,’ the agent of Lord Palmerston, or a recent convert from Popery, +he will sustain his part admirably; and that same world that he has +duped, robbed, and swindled for more than a quarter of a century will +still feed and clothe him--still believe in the luggage that never +comes, and the remittance that will never turn up. + +After all, the man must be a greater artist than I was willing to +believe him to be. He must be a deep student of the human heart--not, +perhaps, in its highest moods; and he must well understand how to touch +certain chords which give their response in unlimited confidence and +long credit. + +No doubt there must be some wondrous fascination in these changeful +fortunes--these ups and downs of life--otherwise no man could have +gone, as he has, for nigh thirty years, hunted, badgered, insulted, +and imprisoned in almost every capital of Europe, and yet no sooner +liberated than, like a giant refreshed, he again returns to his old +toil, never weary wherever the bread of idleness can be eaten, and where +a lie will pay for his liquor. + +Talk of novel-writers--this is the great master of fiction--the man who +brings the product of imagination to the real test of credibility--the +actual interest of his public. Let him fail in his description, his +narrative, the progress of his events, or their probability, and he +is ruined at once. He must not alone arrange the circumstances of his +story, but he must perform the hero, and that, too, as we saw lately +at Padua, without any adventitious aid of dress or costume. I can fancy +what a sorry figure some of our popular tale-writers would present if +they had to appeal to an innkeeper with this poor story of their luggage +lost in the Danube. What a contempt the rascal must have had for Italian +notions of geography, too, when he adopted a river so remote from +where he stood! And yet I’d swear he was as cool, as collected, and as +self-sustained at that moment, as ever was Mr Gladstone in the House as +he rose to move a motion of supply. + +Well, he is in Padua now, doubtless dreaming of fresh conquests, and not +impossibly speculating on a world whose gullibility is indeed infinite, +and which actually seems to take the same pleasure in being cheated in +Fact as it does in being deceived in Fiction. Who knows if the time is +not coming when, instead of sending a box of new novels to the country, +some Mr Mudie will despatch one of these R. N. F. folk by a fast +train, with a line to say, “A great success: his Belgian rogueries most +amusing; the exploit at Madrid equal to anything in ‘Gil Bias’.” + + + + +GÀRIBÀLDI + +We had a very witty Judge in Ireland, who was not very scrupulous about +giving hard knocks to his brothers on the bench, and who, in delivering +a judgment in a cause, found that he was to give the casting-vote +between his two colleagues, who were diametrically opposed to each +other, and who had taken great pains to lay down the reasons for their +several opinions at considerable length. “It now comes to my turn,” said +he, “to declare my view of this case, and fortunately I can afford to +be brief. I agree with my brother B. from the irresistible force of the +admirable argument of my brother M.” + +The story occurred to me as I thought over Garibaldi and the +enthusiastic reception you gave him in England; for I really felt, if it +had not been for Carlyle, I might have been a bit of a hero-worshipper +myself The grand frescoes in caricature of the popular historian have, +however, given me a hearty and wholesome disgust to the whole thing; not +to say that, however enthusiastic a man may feel about his idol, he must +be sorely ashamed of his fellow-worshippers. “Lie down with dogs, and +you’ll get up with fleas,” says an old Irish adage; but what, in the +name of all entomology, is a man to get up with who lies down with these +votaries of Garibaldi? So fine a fellow, and so mangy a following, it +would be hard to find. The opportunity for all the blatant balderdash +of shopkeeping eloquence, of that high “Falootin” style so popular over +the Atlantic, of those grand-sounding periods about freedom and love +of country, was not to be lost by a set of people who, in all their +enthusiasm for Garibaldi, are intently bent on making themselves +foreground figures in the tableau that should have been filled by +himself alone. + +“Sir Francis Burdett call _you_ his friend!--as well call a Bug his +bedfellow!” said the sturdy old yeoman, whose racy English I should like +to borrow, to characterise the stupid incongruity between Garibaldi and +his worshippers. It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, +more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified, than the man +himself. His noble head; his clear, honest, brown eye; his finely-traced +mouth, beautiful as a woman’s, and only strung up to sternness when +anything ignoble or mean had outraged him; and, last of all, his voice +contains a fascination perfectly irresistible, allied, as you knew and +felt these graces were, with a thoroughly pure, untarnished nature. The +true measure of the man lies in the fact that, though his life has been +a series of the boldest and most daring achievements, his courage is +about the very last quality uppermost in your mind when you meet him. +It is of the winning softness of his look and manner, his kind +thoughtfulness for others, his sincere pity for all suffering, his +gentleness, his modesty, his manly sense of brotherhood with the very +humblest of the men who have loved him, that you think: these are the +traits that throw all his heroism into shadow; and all the glory of the +conqueror pales before the simple virtues of the man. + +He never looked to more advantage than in that humble life of Caprera, +where people came and went--some, old and valued friends, whose presence +warmed up their host’s heart; others, mere passing acquaintances, or, +as it might be, not even that; worshippers or curiosity-seekers--living +where and how they could in that many-roomed small house; diving into +the kitchen to boil their coffee; sallying out to the garden to pluck +their radishes; down to the brook for a cress, or to the seaside to +catch a fish,--all more or less busy in the midst of a strange +idleness; for there was not--beyond providing for the mere wants of the +day--anything to be done. The soil would not yield anything. There was +no cultivation outside that little garden, where the grand old soldier +delved, or rested on his spade-handle as he turned his gaze over the +sea, doubtless thinking of the dear land beyond it. + +At dinner--and what a strange meal it was--all met, full of the little +incidents of an uneventful day. The veriest trifles they were, but of +interest to those who listened, and to none more than Garibaldi himself, +who liked to hear who had been over to Maddalena, and what sport they +had; or whether Albanesi had taken any mullet, and who it was said he +could mend the boat? and who was to paint her? Not a word was spoken +of the political events of the world, and every mention of them was +as rigidly excluded as though a government spy had been seated at the +table. + +He rarely spoke himself, but was a good listener--not merely hearing +with attention, but showing, by an occasional suggestion or a hint, how +his mind speculated on the subject before him. If, however, led to speak +of himself or his exploits, the unaffected ease and simplicity of the +man became at once evident. Never, by any chance, would an expression +escape him that redounded to his own share in any achievement; +without any studied avoidance the matter would somehow escape, or, if +accidentally touched on, be done so very lightly as to make it appear of +no moment whatever. + +To have done one-tenth of what Garibaldi has done, a man must +necessarily have thrown aside scruples which he would never have +probably transgressed in his ordinary life. He must have been often +arbitrary, and sometimes almost cruel; and yet, ask his followers, and +they will tell you that punishment scarcely existed in the force under +his immediate command--that the most hardened offender would have +quailed more under a few stern words of reproof from “the General” than +from a sentence that sent him to a prison. + +That, to effect his purpose, he would lay hands on what he needed, not +recklessly or indifferently, but thoughtfully and doubtless regretfully, +we all know. I can remember an instance of this kind, related to me by +a British naval officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. “It was +off La Plata,” said my informant, “when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, +that the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small +gun-brig of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never harassed his men by +exercises of gunnery, and, indeed, whose ship was as free from any ‘beat +to quarters,’ or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though +she had been a floating chapel. + +“Garibaldi came alongside me one day to say that he had learned the +Sardinian had several tons of powder on board, with an ample supply +of grape, shell, and canister, not to speak of twelve hundred stand of +admirable arms. ‘I want them all,’ said he; ‘my people are fighting with +staves and knives, and we are totally out of ammunition. I want them, +and he won’t let me have them.’ + +“‘He could scarcely do so,’ said I, ‘seeing that they belong to his +Government, and are not in _his_ hands to bestow.’ + +“‘For that reason I must go and take them,’ said Garibaldi. ‘I mean to +board him this very night, and you’ll see if we do not replenish our +powder-flasks.’ + +“‘In that case,’ said I, ‘I shall have to fire on you. It will be +Piracy; nothing else.’ + +“‘You’ll not do so;’ said he, smiling. + +“‘Yes, I promise you that I will. We are at peace and on good terms with +Sardinia, and I cannot behave other than as a friend to her ships of +war.’ + +“‘There’s no help for it, then,’ said Garibaldi, ‘if you see the thing +in that light:’ and good-humouredly quitted the subject, and soon after +took his leave.” + +“And were you,” asked I of my informant, Captain S.----“were you +perfectly easy after that conversation? I mean, were you fully satisfied +that he would not attempt the matter in some other way?” + +“Never more at ease in my life. I knew my man; and that, having left +me under the conviction he had abandoned the exploit, nothing on earth +would have tempted him to renew it in any shape.” + +It might be a matter of great doubt whether any greater intellectual +ability would not have rather detracted from than increased Garibaldi’s +power as a popular leader. I myself feel assured that the simplicity, +the trustfulness, the implicit reliance on the goodness of a cause as a +reason for its success, are qualities which no mere mental superiority +could replace in popular estimation. It is actually Love that is +the sentiment the Italians have for him; and I have seen them, +hard-featured, ay, and hard-natured men, moved to tears as the litter +on which Garibaldi lay wounded was carried down to the place of +embarkation. + +Garibaldi has always been a thoughtful, silent, reflective man, not +communicative to others, or in any way expansive; and from these +qualities have come alike his successes and his failures. Of the +conversations reported of him by writers I do not believe a syllable. He +speaks very little; and, luckily for him, that little only with those on +whose integrity he can rely not to repeat him. + +Cavour, who knew men thoroughly, and studied them just as closely as he +studied events, understood at once that Garibaldi was the man he wanted. +He needed one who should move the national heart--who, sprung from the +people himself, and imbued with all the instincts of his class, should +yet not dissever the cause of liberty from the cause of monarchy. To +attach Garibaldi to the throne was no hard task. The King, who led the +van of his army, was an idol made for such worship as Garibaldi’s. The +monarch who could carry a knapsack and a heavy rifle over the cliffs +of Monte Rosa from sunrise to sunset, and take his meal of hard bread +before he “turned in” at night in a shepherd’s shieling, was a King +after the bold buccaneer’s own heart. + +To what end inveigh against the luxuries of a court, its wasteful +splendours, or its costly extravagance, with such an example? This +strong-sinewed, big-boned, unpoetical King has been the hardest nut ever +republicanism had to crack! + +It might be possible to overrate the services Garibaldi has rendered +to Italy--it would be totally impossible to exaggerate those he has +rendered the Monarchy; and out of Garibaldi’s devotion to Victor +Emmanuel has sprung that hearty, honest, manly appreciation of the King +which the Italians unquestionably display. A merely political head of +the State, though he were gifted with the highest order of capacity, +would have disappeared altogether from view in the sun-splendour of +Garibaldi’s exploits; not so the King Victor Emmanuel, who only shone +the brighter in the reflected blaze of the hero who was so proud to +serve him. + +Yet for all that friendship, and all the acts that grew out of it, +natural and spontaneous as they are, one great mind was needed to guide, +direct, encourage, or restrain. It was Cavour who, behind the scenes, +pulled all the wires; and these heroes--heroes they were too--were but +his puppets. + +Cavour died, and then came Aspromonte. + +If any other man than Garibaldi had taken the present moment to make +a visit--an almost ostentatious visit--to Mazzini, it might be a grave +question how far all the warm enthusiasm of this popular reception could +be justified. Garibaldi is, however, the one man in Europe from whom +no one expects anything but impulsive action. It is in the very +unreflectiveness of his generosity that he is great. There has not been, +I am assured, for many years back, any very close or intimate friendship +between these two men; but it was quite enough that Mazzini was in +trouble and difficulty, to rally to his side that brave-hearted +comrade who never deserted his wounded. Nor is there in all Garibaldi’s +character anything finer or more exalted than the steadfast adherence he +has ever shown to his early friendships. No flatteries of the great--no +blandishments of courts and courtiers--none of those seductive +influences which are so apt to weave themselves into a man’s nature when +surrounded by continual homage and admiration--not any of these have +corrupted that pure and simple heart; and there is not a presence +so exalted, nor a scene of splendour so imposing, as could prevent +Garibaldi from recognising with eager delight any the very humblest +companion that ever shared hardship and danger beside him. + +To have achieved his successes, a man must of necessity have rallied +around him many besides enthusiasts of the cause; he must have recruited +amongst men of broken fortunes--reckless, lawless fellows, who accepted +the buccaneer’s life as a means of wiping off old scores with that old +world “that would have none of them.” It was not amidst the orderly, the +soberly-trained, and well-to-do that he could seek for followers. And +what praise is too great for him who could so inspire this mass, heaving +with passion as it was, with his own noble sentiments, and make them +feel that the work before them--a nation’s regeneration--was a task too +high and too holy to be accomplished by unclean hands? Can any eulogy +exaggerate the services of a man who could so magnetise his fellow-men +as to associate them at once with his nobility of soul, and elevate them +to a standard little short of his own? That he _did_ do this we have the +proof. Pillage was almost unknown amongst the Garibaldians; and these +famished, ill-clad, shoeless men marched on from battle to battle +with scarcely an instance of crime that called for the interference of +military law. + +Where is the General who could boast of doing as much? Where is the +leader who could be bold enough to give such a pledge for his followers? +Is there an army in Europe--in the world--for whom as much could be +said? + +All honour, therefore, to the man--not whose example only, but whose +very contact suggests high intent and noble action. All honour to +him who brings to a great cause, not alone the dazzling splendour +of heroism, but the more enduring brightness of a pure and unsullied +integrity! + +Such a man may be misled; he can never be corrupted. + + + + +A NEW INVESTMENT. + +I am not so sure how far we ought to be grateful for it, but assuredly +the fact is so, that nothing has so much tended to show the world with +what little wisdom it is governed than the Telegraph. It is not merely +that cabinets are no longer the sole possessors of early intelligence, +though this alone was once a very great privilege; and there is no +over-estimating the power conferred by the exclusive possession of +a piece of important news--a battle won or lost, the outbreak of a +revolution, the overthrow of a throne--even for a few hours before it +became the property of the public. The telegraph, however, is the great +disenchanter. The misty uncertainty, the cloud-like indistinctness that +used of old to envelop all ministerial action, converting Downing +Street into a sort of Olympus, and making a small mythology out of +Precis-writers, is all gone, all dispersed. Three or four cold hard +lines, thin and terse as the wire that conveyed them, are sworn enemies +to all style, and especially to all the evasive cajoleries of those +dissolving views of events diplomacy loves to revel in. What becomes of +the graceful drapery in which statesmen used to clothe the great facts +of the world, when a simple despatch, “fifteen words, exclusive of +the address,” tells the whole story? and when we have read that “the +insurgents are triumphant everywhere, the king left the capital at four +o’clock, a provisional government was proclaimed this morning,” and +suchlike, what do we care for the sonorous periods in which official +priestcraft chants the downfall of a dynasty? + +The great stronghold of statecraft was, however, Speculation--I mean +that half-prophetic view of events which we always conceded to those +who looked over the world from a higher window than ourselves. What +has become of this now? Who so bold as to predict what, while he is yet +speaking, may be contradicted? who is there hardy enough to forecast +what the events of the last half-hour may have falsified, and five +minutes more will serve to publish to the whole world? + +It may be amusing to read the comments of the speech or the leading +article, but the “despatch” is the substance: and however clever the +variations, the original melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine +to himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of +all its incidents--how insupportable would the slow procession of events +become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort +of Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded +those who differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat +below the “gangway.” There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic +devices of those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many +men are their own priests, their lawyers, and their doctors, and where, +certes, each man is his own prophet. + +These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I +took yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our +diplomatists--one of those men who seem to weld into their happy natures +all the qualities which make good companionship, and blend with the +polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep +reflectiveness of a man of the world--a man to whom nothing comes wrong, +and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his element +at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands. + +“I say, O’Dowd,” cried he, after a pause of some time in our +conversation, “has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires +are destined to be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within +a very few years neither of our occupations will have a representative +left? Take my word for it,” said he, more solemnly, “in less than +ten years from the present date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as +a posthorse, and a post-shay not more a curiosity than a +minister-plenipotentiary.” + +“Do you really think so?” + +“I am certain of it. People nowadays won’t travel eight miles an hour, +or be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they’ve happened. Life +is too short for all this now, and, as we can’t lengthen our days, we +must shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman +Mathews used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, ‘Let me +have some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.’ Have you ever +thought seriously on the matter?” + +“Never,” said I. + +“You ought, then,” said he. “I tell you again, we are all in the same +category with flint locks and wooden ships--we belong to the past. Don’t +you know it? Don’t you feel it?” + +“I don’t like to feel it,” said I, peevishly. + +“Nonsense!” cried he, laughing. “Self-deception does nothing in the +matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a ‘smooth-Bore.’ +What ‘our own correspondent’ represents, I leave to your own modesty.” + +“It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge,” + said I, gloomily. + +“Of course it will, but there’s no help for it. Old novels go to the +trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-balls in +the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also? +At all events, I have a scheme for our transition state--a plan I have +long revolved in my mind--and there’s certainly something in it. + +“First of all realise it, as the Yankees say, that neither a government +nor a public will want either of us. When the wires have told that +the Grand-Duke Strong-grog-enofif was assassinated last night, or that +Prince Damisseisen has divorced his wife and married a milliner, +Downing Street and Printing-house Square will agree that all the moral +reflections the events inspire can be written just as well in Piccadilly +as from a palace on the Neva, or a den on the Danube. Gladstone will be +the better pleased, and take another farthing off ‘divi-divi,’ or some +other commodity in general use and of universal appreciation. Don’t you +agree to that?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“You don’t know,” drawled he out, in mimicry of my tone: “are you so +conceited about your paltry craft that you fancy the world cares for the +manner of it, or that there is really any excellence in the cookery? +Not a bit of it, man. We are bores both of us; and what’s worse--far +worse--we are bygones. Can’t you see that when a man buys a canister +of prepared beef-tea, he never asks any one to pour on the boiling +water--he brews his broth for himself? This is what people do with +the telegrams. They don’t want you or me to come in with the kettle: +besides, all tastes are not alike; one man may like his Bombardment of +Charleston weaker; another might prefer his Polish Massacre more highly +flavoured. This is purely a personal matter. How can you suit the +capricious likings of the million, and of the million--for that’s the +worst of it--the million that don’t want you? What a practical rebuke, +besides, to prosy talkers and the whole long-winded race, the sharp, +short tap of the telegraph! Who would listen to a narrative of Federal +finance when he has read ‘Gold at 204--Chase rigged the market’? Who +asks for strategical reasons in presence of ‘Almighty whipping--lost +eighty thousand--Fourth Michigan skedaddled ‘? + +“How graphic will description become--how laconic all comment! You will +no more listen to one of the old circumlocutionary conversers than you +would travel by the waggon, or make a voyage in a collier. + +“How, I would ask, could the business of life go on in an age active as +ours if all coinage was in copper, and vast transactions in money should +be all conducted in the base metal? Imagine the great Kings of Finance +counting over the debts of whole nations in penny-pieces, and you have +at once a picture of what, until a few years ago, was our intellectual +condition. How nobly Demosthenic our table-talk will be!--how grandly +abrupt and forensic! + +“There is nothing, however, over which I rejoice more than in the +utter extinction of the anecdote-mongers--the insufferable monsters +who related Joe Millers as personal experiences, or gave you their own +versions of something in the morning papers. Thank heaven they are done +for! + +“Last of all, the unhappy man who used to be sneered at for his silence +in company, will now be on a par with his fellows. The most bashful will +be able to blurt out, ‘Poles massacred,’ ‘Famine in Ireland,’ ‘Feast at +the Mansion House,’ ‘Collision at Croydon,’ ‘Bank discount eleven.’ + +“Who will dare to propagate scandal, when all amplification is denied +him? How much adulteration will the liquor bear which is measured by +drop? Nor will the least of our benefits be the long, reflective +pauses--those brilliant ‘flashes of silence’ which will supersede the +noise, turmoil, and confusion of what we used to call conversation. No, +no, Corneli mi. The game is up. ‘Our own Correspondent’ is a piece that +has run its course, and there’s nothing to do but take a farewell +benefit and quit the boards.” + +“If I could fall back on my pension like you, I’d perhaps take the +matter easier,” said I, gruffly. + +“Well, I think you ought to be pensioned. If I was a Minister, I’d +propose it. My notion is this: The proper subjects for pension are those +who, if not provided for by the State, are likely to starve. They are, +consequently, the class of persons who have devoted their lives to +an unmarketable commodity--such as poonah-painting, Berlin-wool work, +despatch-writing, and suchlike. I’d include ‘penny-a-lining’--don’t be +offended because you get twopence, perhaps. I’d pension the whole of +them--pretty much as I’d buy off the organ-man, and request him to move +on.” + +“As, however,” said I, “we are not fortunate enough to figure in the +Estimates, may I ask what is the grand scheme you propose for our +employment?” + +“I’m coming to it. I’d have reached it ere this, if you had not required +such a positive demonstration of your utter uselessness. You have +delayed me by what Guizot used to call ‘an obstructive indisposition to +believe.’” + +“Go on; I yield--that is, under protest.” “Protest as much as you like. +In diplomacy a protest means, ‘I hope you won’t; but if you will, I +can’t help it,’ _Vide_ the correspondence about the annexation of Nice +and Savoy. Now to my project. It is to start a monster hotel--one of +those gigantic establishments for which the Americans are famous--in +some much-frequented part of Europe, and to engage as part of the +household all the ‘own time’ celebrities of diplomacy and letters. Every +one knows--most of us have, indeed, felt--the desire experienced to see, +meet, and converse with the noticeable men of the world--the people who, +so to say, leave their mark on the age they live in--the cognate +signs of human algebra. Only fancy, then, with what ecstasy would the +traveller read the prospectus of an establishment wherein, as in a +pantheon, all the gods were gathered around him. What would not the +Yankee give for a seat at a table where the great Eltchi ladled out the +soup, and the bland-voiced author of ‘The Woman in White’ lisped out, +‘Sherry, sir?’ Only imagine being handed one’s fish by the envoy +that got us into the Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the +accomplished writer of ‘Orley Farm’! Picture a succession of celebrities +in motion around the table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious +sentiment of the man that could say, ‘Lyons, a little more fat;’ +or, ‘Carlyle, madeira;’ and imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so +gracefully handed you by ‘Lost and Saved,’ and the culminating pride of +taking your flat candlestick from the fingers of ‘Eleanor’s Victory.’ + +“Who would not cross the great globe to live in such an atmosphere of +genius and grandeur? for if there be, as there may, souls dead to +the charms of literary greatness, who in this advanced age of ours is +indifferent to the claims of high rank and station and title? Fancy +sending a K.C.B. to call a cab, or ordering a special envoy to fetch the +bootjack! I dare not pursue the theme. I cannot trust myself to dwell +on a subject so imbued with suggestiveness--all the varying and wondrous +combinations such a galaxy of splendour and power would inevitably +produce. What wit, what smartness, what epigram would abound! What +a hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms +and profound reflections! How I see with my mind’s eye the literary +traveller trying to overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they +wash up their glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with +a cigar, well knowing his charming article on Dickens. + +“The class-writers would of course have their specialties. +‘Soapy-Sponge’ would figure in the stable-yard, and ‘Proverbial +Philosophy’ watch the trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be +obtained for a room in such an establishment, and every place at the +_table-d’hôte_ should be five guineas at least. For, after all, +what would be an invitation to Compiègne to a sojourn here? Material +advantages might possibly incline to the side of the Imperial board; but +would any one presume to say that the company in the one was equal to +the ‘service’ at the other? Who would barter the glorious reality of +the first for the mean and shallow mockery of the last? Last of all, how +widespread and powerful would be the influence of such an establishment +over the manners of our time! Would Cockneyism, think you, omit its +H’s in presence of that bland individual who offers him cheese? Would +presumption dare to criticise in view of that ‘Quarterly’ man who is +pouring out the bitter beer? What a check on the expansive balderdash of +the ‘gent’ at his dessert to know and feel that ‘Adam Bede’ was behind +him! + +“Would Brown venture on that anecdote of Jones if the napkin-in-hand +listener should be an ex-envoy renowned for his story-telling? Who +would break down in his history, enunciate a false quantity, misquote a +speech, or mistake the speaker, in such hearing? Some one might object +to the position and to the functions I assign to persons of a certain +distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act +as a hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I +confess I do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we +are pleased to call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, +and that the man who feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, +capacity, and attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior +in station and condition, has within his heart a pride all the more +exalting that it is stimulated by the sense of a great injustice, and +the profound consciousness that it is to himself, to his own nature, he +must look to redress the balance that fortune would set against him. + +“In the brilliant conversation of the servants’ hall, then, would these +many gifted men take their revenge; and what stores of good stories, +what endless drolleries, what views of life, and what traits of +character, would they derive from the daily opportunities! It has +constantly been remarked by foreigners that there is no trait of +our national manners less graceful in itself than the way in which +inferiors, especially menials, are addressed in England. It is alleged, +perhaps with some truth, that we mark every difference of class more +decisively than other nations; and certainly in our treatment of +servants there is none of that same confidential tone so amusing in a +French vaudeville. The scheme I now suggest will be the effective remedy +for this. + +“Will Jones, think you, presume to be imperative if it be Alfred +Tennyson who has brought up his hot water? Will Brown be critical about +the polish, if it be Owen Meredith has taken him his boots? Will even +Snooks cry out, ‘Holloa, you fellow!’ to a passing waiter, if the +individual so addressed might chance to be an Oriental Secretary or a +Saturday Reviewer? + +“And would the most infatuated of Bagmen venture on what O’Connell used +to call a ‘chuck-under-the-chin manner,’ were the chamber-maid to be +Margaret Maitland? + +“Such, in brief, is my plan, O’Dowd; nor is the least of its advantages +that it gets rid of the Pension List, and that beggarly £1200 a-year by +which wealthy England assumes to aid the destitute sons and daughters +of letters. As for myself, I have fixed on my station. I mean to be +swimming-master, and the prospectus shall announce that His Excellency +the late Minister at the Court of-----ducks ladies every morning from +eight till nine. Think over the project, and drop me a hint as to the +sort of place would suit you.” + + + + +ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. + +My diplomatic friend is rarely very serious in his humour; this morning, +however, he was rather disposed that way, and so I took the opportunity +to question him about Italy, a country where he has lived long, and +whose people he certainly understands better than most Englishmen. I +gathered from him that he considered the English were thoroughly +well informed on Italy, but in the most hopeless ignorance as to the +Italians. “As for the house and the furniture, you know it all.” said +he; “but of the company you know positively nothing.” + +Byron understood them better than any other Englishman. He had his +admission _par la petite porte_--that is, he gained his knowledge +through his vices; and the Italians were so flattered to see a great +Milor adapt himself so readily to their lax notions and loose morality +that they grew frank and open with him. + +His pretended--I suppose it was only pretended--dislike to England +disarmed them, too, of all distrust of him; and for the first time they +felt themselves judged by a man who did not think Charing Cross finer +than the Piazza del Popolo. + +Byron’s rank and station gained him a ready acceptance where the masses +of our travelling countrymen would not be received; for the Italians +love rank, and respect all its gradations. Even the republics were great +aristocracies; and in all their imitations of France they have never +affected “equality.” They love splendour too, and display; and in all +their festivals you see something like an effort to recall a time when +their cities were the grandest and their citizens the proudest in all +Europe. + +They are a very difficult people to understand. There are not so many +salient points in the Italian as in the German or the Frenchman; his +character is not so strongly accented; his traits are finer--his shades +of temperament more delicate. + +Besides this, there is another difficulty: one is immensely aided in +their appreciation of a people by their lighter drama, which is in a +measure a reflex of the daily sayings and doings of those who listen to +it. Now the Italians have no comedy, or next to none; so barren are they +in this respect, that more than once have I asked myself, Can there be +any domesticity in a nation which has not mirrored itself on the stage? +What sort of a substance can that be that never had a shadow? + +The immortal Goldoni, as they print him in all the play-bills, is +ineffably stupid, his characters ill drawn, his plots meagre, and his +dialogue as flat as the talk of a three-volume novel. The only palpable +lesson derivable from him is, that all ranks and classes stand pretty +much on an equality, and that as regards modes of expression the count +and his coachman are precisely on a level. There is scarcely a trait of +humour in these pieces--never, by any accident, anything bordering on +wit. The characters talk the veriest commonplaces, and announce the most +humdrum intentions in phraseology as flat and wearisome. + +Now you will ask, perhaps, Is this a fair type of the present-day +habits--are the Italians of our time like those of Goldoni’s? My reply +would be, that it would be difficult to imagine a people who have +changed less within a century. The same small topics, the same petty +interests engage them. They display the same ardent enthusiasm about +trifles, and the same thorough indifference to great things, as their +grandfathers; and they are marvellously like the dreary puppets that the +immortal dramatist has given us as their representatives. + +It has been reproached to Sheridan, that no people in real life ever +displayed such brilliancy in conversation as the characters in the +‘School for Scandal;’ and tame as Goldoni reads, I verily believe his +dialogue is rather above the level of an Italian salon. + +The great interests of Life, the game of politics, the contests and +reverses of party, literature in its various forms, and the sports of +the field, form topics which make the staple of our dinner-talk. Instead +of these the Italians have their one solitary theme--the lapses of their +neighbours, the scandals of the small world around them. Not that they +are uncharitable or malevolent; far from it. They discuss a frailty as a +board of physicians might a malady, and without the slightest thought of +imputing blame to “the patient.” They have now and then a hard word for +an unfortunate husband, but even him they treat rather as one ignorant +of conventional usages and the ways of the polite world, than as a man +radically bad or cruel. + +They have in their blood the old Greek sensitiveness to suffering, +and they dislike painful scenes and disastrous catastrophes; and +this sentiment they carry to extremes. Although they have the finest +representative of Othello--Salvini--at this moment in Europe, the +terrible scene of the murder of Desdemona is a shock that many would +shrink from witnessing. They will bear any strain on the imagination, +but their fine-strung nerves revolt against the terrible in action. +To this natural refinement is owing much of that peculiar softness of +manner and reluctance to disoblige which foreigners frequently mistake +for some especial desire to win their favour. + +The idleness which would make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on +the Italian. He knows how to “do nothing” with dignity. Be assured, if +Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him +down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went through his +tomfoolery gracefully. + +And with all this, is it not strange that these are the people who +furnish the most reckless political enthusiasts of the world, and who, +year after year, go to the scaffold for “an idea”? There is something +hysterical in this Italian nature, which prompts to paroxysms like +these--some of that impulsive fury which, in the hill-tribes of India, +sends down hordes of fanatics to impale themselves on British bayonets. +The men like Orsini abound--calm of look, mild of speech, and gentle in +manner, and yet ready to commit the greatest of crimes and confront the +most terrible of deaths for a mere speculative notion--the possibility +of certain changes producing certain contingencies, and of which other +changes are to ensue, and Italy become something that she never was +before, nor would the rest of Europe suffer her to remain, if ever she +attained to it. + +Wine-tasters tell us it is vain to look for a bottle of unadulterated +port: I should in the same way declare that there are few rarer things +to be found than a purely Italian society. The charm of their glorious +climate; the beauty of their country, the splendour of their cities, +rich in centuries of associations, have attracted strangers from every +corner of the Old World and the New; and the salons of Italy are but +caravanserais, where all nations meet and all tongues are spoken. + +The Italians like this; it flatters national pride, and it suits +national indolence. The outer barbarians from the Neva or the Thames +have fine houses and give costly entertainments. Their sterner looks and +more robust habits are meet subject for the faint little jests that are +bandied in some _patois_; and each thinks himself the superior of his +neighbour. But as for the home life of these people, who has seen +it? What is known of it? Into that long, lofty, arched-ceilinged +drawing-room, lighted by its one lamp, where sits the Signora with +her daughter and the grimy-looking, ill-shaven priest, there is not, +perhaps, much temptation to enter, nor is the conversation of a kind +one would care to join in; and there is but this, and the noisy, almost +riotous, reception after the opera, where a dozen people are contending +at “Lansquenet,” while one or perhaps two thump the piano, and some +three or four shout rather than sing the last popular melody of the +season, din being accepted as gaiety, and a clamour that would make +deafness a blessing being taken for the delight of a charmed assembly. + +I have been told that Cavour once said, that no great change would be +accomplished in Italy till the Italians introduced the public-school +system of England. So long as the youth of the country were given up +for education to the priests--the most illiterate, narrow-minded, and +bigoted class in Europe--so long would they carry with them through life +the petty prejudices of their early days; or, in emancipating themselves +from these, fall into a scepticism whose baneful distrust would damp +the ardour of all patriotism, and sap the strength of every high and +generous emulation. As the great statesman said, “I want Italians to be +Italians, and not to be bad Frenchmen.” + +With a Peninsular Eton or Rugby at work, who is to say what might not +come of a people whose intellectual qualities are unquestionably +so great? The system which imparts to boys the honourable sense of +responsibility, the high value of truthfulness, the scorn of all that is +mean,--this is what is wanting here. Let the Italian start in life with +these, and it would not be easy to set limits to what his country may +become in greatness. + +I have never heard of a people with so little self-control; and their +crimes are, in a large majority of cases, the results of some passionate +impulse rather than of a matured determination to do wrong. It is by no +means uncommon to find that your butler or your coachman has taken to +his bed ill of a _rabbia_, as they call it--a fit of passion, in plain +words, brought on by a reproof he has considered unjust. This same +_rabbia_ is occasionally a serious affair. Some short time ago, an +actor, who was hissed off the stage at Turin, went home and died of it; +and within a very few weeks, a case occurred in Florence which would +be laughable if it had not terminated so tragically. One of the new +guardians of the public safety, habited in a strange travestie of an +English police-costume, was followed through the streets by a crowd of +boys, who mocked and jeered him on his dress. Seeing that he resented +their remarks with temper, they only became more aggressive, and at last +went so far as to pursue him through the city with yells and cries. The +man, overcome with passion, got _rabbia_, and died. Ridicule is the one +thing no Italian can bear. When you lose temper with an Italian, and +give way to any show of violence before him, he is triumphant; his cheek +glows, his eye brightens, his chest expands, he sees he has you at a +disadvantage, and regards you as one who in a moment of passion has +thrown his cards on the table and exposed his hand. After this it is +next to impossible to regain your position before him. If you be +calm, however, and if, besides being calm, you can be sarcastic, he is +overcome at once. + +It is a rare thing--one of the rarest--to see this weapon employed in +the debates; but when it does occur, it is ever successful. The fact +is, that Wit, which forms the subtlety of other nations, is not subtle +enough for the Italian; and the edge that cuts so cleanly elsewhere +makes a jagged wound with them. + +After all, they are very easy to live with. If the social atmosphere +is not very stimulating or invigorating, it is easy to breathe, and +pleasant withal; and one trait of theirs is not without its especial +merit--they are less under the control of conventionalities than any +people I ever heard of, and consequently have few affectations. If they +do assume any little part, or play off any little game, it is with the +palpable object of a distinct gain by it; never is it done for personal +display or individual glory. There are no more snobs in Italy than +there are snakes in Iceland; and that, after all, is, as the world goes, +saying something for a people. + +Of all the nations of Europe, I know of none, save Italy, in which the +characters are the same in every class and gradation. The appeal you +would make to the Italian noble must be the same you would address to +the humble peasant on his property. The point of view is invariably +identical; the sympathies are always alike. No matter what differences +education may have instituted and habits implanted, the nobleman and his +lackey think and feel and reason alike. Separate them how you will in +station, and they will still approach the consideration of any subject +in the same spirit, and regard it with the same hopes and fears, the +same expectations and distrusts. To this trait, of whose existence +Cavour well knew, was owing the marvellous unanimity in the nation on +the last war with Austria. The appeal to the prince could be addressed, +and was addressed, to the peasant. There was not an argument that spoke +to the one which was not re-echoed in the heart of the other. In fact, +the chain that binds the social condition of Italy is shorter than +elsewhere, and the extreme links are less remote from each other than +with most nations of Europe. + +Every Italian is a conspirator, whether the question be the gravest +or the lightest; all must be done in it ambiguously--secretly-- +mysteriously. Whatever is conducted openly is deemed to be done +stupidly. To take a house, buy a horse, or hire a servant without the +intervention of another man to disparage the article, chaffer over the +price, and disgust the vendor, is an act of impetuous folly. “Why didn’t +you tell _me!_” says your friend, “that you wished to have that villa? +My coachman is half-brother to the wife of the _fattore_. I could have +learned everything that could be urged against its convenience, and +learned, besides, what peculiar pressure for money affected the owner.” + Besides this, everything must be done as though by mere hazard: you +really never knew there was a house there, never noticed it; you even +sneer at the taste of the man who selected the spot, and wonder “what he +meant by it.” In nine cases out of ten the other party is not deceived +by this skirmishing; he fires a little blank-cartridge too, and so goes +on the engagement. All have great patience; life, at least in Italy, is +quite long enough for all this; no one is overburdened with business; +the days are usually wearisome, and the theatres are only open of an +evening! + +It is, besides, so pleasant and so interesting to the Italian to pit +his craft against another man’s, and back his own subtlety against his +neighbour’s. It is a sort of gambling of which he never wearies; for +the game is one that demands not merely tact, address, and cunning, +but face, voice, manner, and bearing. It is temperament. Individuality +itself is on the table; and so is it, that you may assume it as certain +that the higher organisation will invariably rise the winner. + +Imagine Bull in such a combat, and you have a picture of the most +hopeless incapacity. He frets, fumes, storms, and sulks; but what avails +it? he is “done” in the end; but he is no more aware that the struggle +he has been engaged in is an intellectual one, than was the Bourgeois +Gentilhomme conscious that he had been for forty years “talking prose.” + +The Priest was doubtless the great originator of all this mechanism +of secrecy and fraud. For centuries the Church has been the Tyrant of +Italy. The whole fate and fortunes of families depended on the will of +a poor, ill-clad, ignoble-looking creature, who, though he sat at meals +with the master, ate and talked like a menial. To this man was known +everything--all that passed beneath the roof. Not alone was he aware of +the difficulties, the debts, the embarrassments of the family, but to +him were confided their feelings, their shortcomings, their sorrows, and +it might be their shame. From him there was nothing secret; and he sat +there, in the midst of them, a sort of Fate, wielding the power of one +who knew every spring and motive that could stir them, every hope that +could thrill, every terror that could appal them. There was no escape +from him--cold, impassive spectator of good or evil fortune, without one +affection to attach him to life, grimly watching the play of passions +which made men his slaves, and only interested by the exercise of a +power that degraded them. The layman could not outwit him, it is true, +but he could steal something of the craft that he could not rival. This +he has done; how he has employed it any one can at least imagine who has +had dealings in Italy. + + + + +THE DECLINE OF WHIST. + +What is the reason of the decline of Whist? Why is it that every year we +find fewer players, and less proficiency in those who play? It is a far +graver question than it may seem at first blush, and demands an amount +of investigation much deeper than I am able to give it here. + +Of course I am prepared to hear that people nowadays are too +accomplished and too intellectual to be obliged to descend for their +pastime to a mere game at cards; that higher topics engage and higher +interests occupy them; that they read and reflect more than their +fathers and grandfathers did; and that they would look down with disdain +upon an intellectual combat where the gladiators might be the last +surviving veterans of a bygone century. + +Now, if the conversational tone of our time were pre-eminently +brilliant--if people were wiser, wittier, more amusing, and more +instructive than formerly--if we lived in an age of really good +talkers,--I might assent to the force of this explanation; but what is +the truth? Ours is, of all the times recorded by history, the dullest +and dreariest: rare as whist-players are, pleasant people are still +rarer. It is not merely that the power of entertaining is gone, but so +has the ambition. Nobody tries to please, and the success is admirable! +It is fashionable to be stupid, and we are the most modish people in the +universe. It is absurd, then, in a society whose interchange of thought +is expressed in monosyllables, and a certain haw-haw dreariness pervades +all intercourse, to say that people are above Whist. Why, they are below +Push-pin! + +It would be sufficient to point to the age when Whist was most in vogue, +to show that it flavoured a society second to none in agreeability; and +who were the players? The most eminent divines, the greatest ministers, +the most profound jurists, the most subtle diplomatists. What an +influence a game so abounding in intellectual teaching must have +exercised on the society where it prevailed, can scarcely be computed. +Blackstone has a very remarkable passage on the great social effect +produced upon the Romans by their popular games; and he goes so far as +to say that society imbibes a vast amount of those conventionalities +which form its laws, from an Tin-conscious imitation of the rules which +govern its pastimes. Take our own time, and I ask with confidence, +should we find such want of purpose as our public men exhibit, such +uncertainty, such feebleness, and such defective allegiance to party, +in a whist-playing age? Would men be so ready as we see them to renounce +their principles, if they bore fresh in their mind all the obloquy that +follows “a revoke”? Would they misquote their statistics in face of the +shame that attends on “a false score”? Would they be so ready to assert +what they know they must retract, if they had a recent recollection of +being called on “to take down the honours”? + +Think, then, of the varied lessons--moral as well as mental--that the +game instils; the caution, the reserve, the patient attention, the +memory, the deep calculation of probabilities, embracing all the rules +of evidence, the calm self-reliance, and the vigorous daring that shows +when what seems even rashness may be the safest of all expedients. +Imagine the daily practice of these gifts and faculties, and tell me, +if you can, that he who exercises them can cease to employ them in his +everyday life. You might as well assert that the practice of gymnastics +neither develops the muscle nor increases strength. + +I cannot believe a great public man to have attained a fall development +of his power if he has not been a whist-player; and for a leader of the +House, it is an absolute necessity. Take a glance for a moment at what +goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. +Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his +party that unhappy man is, who _will_ ask a question to-day which this +day week would be unanswerable. What is that but “playing his card out +of time”? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the +unlucky “something” being the key-note to his party’s politics which +he has thus disclosed. What is this but “showing his hand”? Hear that +dreary blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has +just asserted--“trumping,” as it were, “his partner’s trick.” Or that +still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken “the +lead out of the hand” that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would +there be one--even one--of these solecisms committed in an age when +Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and +practice of the odd trick? + +Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston “forces the hand” of +the Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon +the card Lord Russell has let drop, and “calls on him to play it.” And +in the face of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered +creatures Leech gives us in ‘Punch,’ who, if asked, “Can they play?” + answer with a contemptuous ha-ha laugh, “I rather think not.” + +To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude +occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand’s +sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable +advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down +in that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and +brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era. +By what other agency--through what fortuitous combination of events +other than the game--could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How +could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual +intimacy? + +It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this +situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do +not possess--any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest +inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical +of those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries +of this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in +the lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance. +Not one of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet +he was a good player: too venturous, perhaps--too dashing--but splendid +with “a strong hand!” During all the sittings of the Paris Congress he +played every night at the Jockey Club, and won very largely--some say +above twenty thousand pounds. + +The late Prince Metternich played well, but not brilliantly. It was a +patient, cautious, back-game, and never fully developed till the last +card was played. He grew easily tired too, and very seldom could sit +out more than twelve or fourteen rubbers; unlike Talleyrand, who always +arose from table, after perhaps twelve hours’ play, fresher and brighter +than when he began. Lord Melbourne played well, but had moments of +distraction, when he suffered the smaller interests of politics to +interfere with his combinations. I single him out, however, as a +graceful compliment to a party who have numbered few good players in +their ranks; for certainly the Tories could quote folly ten to +one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs are too superficial, too +crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be whist-players; and, worse than +all, too distrustful. A Whig could never trust his partner--he could not +for a moment disabuse himself of the notion that his colleague meant to +outwit him. A Whig, too, would invariably try to win by something +not perfectly legitimate; and, last of all, he would be incessantly +appealing to the bystanders, and asking if he had not, even if +egregiously beaten, played better than his opponents. + +The late Cabinet of Lord Derby contained some good players. Two of the +Secretaries of State were actually fine players, and one of them adds +Whist to accomplishments which would have made their possessor an +Admirable Crichton, if genius had not elevated him into a far loftier +category than Crichtons belong to. Rechberg plays well, and likes +his game; but he is in Whist, as are all Germans, a thorough pedant. I +remember an incident of his whist-life sufficiently amusing in its way, +though, in relation, the reader loses what to myself is certainly the +whole pungency of the story: I mean the character and nature of the +person who imparted the anecdote to me, and who is about the most +perfect specimen of that self-possession, which we call coolness, the +age we live in can boast of. + +I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in +many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the +requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which +make of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that +walks the earth. + +I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. “I used to +play a good deal with Rechberg,” said he, “and took pleasure in worrying +him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with +anything that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each +game was followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense +mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and +offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian. + +“One evening, after a number of these discussions, in which Rechberg +had displayed an even unusual warmth and irritability, I found myself +opposed to him in a game, the interest of which had drawn around us a +large assembly of spectators--what the French designate as _la galerie_. +Towards the conclusion of the game it was my turn to lead, and I played +a card which so astounded the Austrian Minister, that he laid down his +cards upon the table and stared fixedly at me. + +“‘In all my experience of Whist,’ said he, deliberately, ‘I never saw +the equal of that.’ + +“‘Of what?’ asked! + +“‘Of the card you have just played,’ rejoined he. ‘It is not merely +that such play violates every principle of the game, but it actually +stultifies all your own combinations.’ + +“‘I think differently, Count,’ said I. ‘I maintain that it is good play, +and I abide by it.’ + +“‘Let us decide it by a wager,’ said he. + +“‘In what way?’ + +“‘Thus: We shall leave the question to the _galerie_. You shall allege +what you deem to be the reasons for your play, and they shall decide if +they accept them as valid.’ + +“‘I agree. What will you bet?’ + +“‘Ten napoleons--twenty, fifty, five hundred if you like!’ cried he, +warmly. + +“‘I shall say ten. You don’t like losing, and I don’t want to punish you +too heavily.’ + +“‘There is the jury, sir,’ said he, haughtily; ‘make your case.’ + +“‘The wager is this,’ said I, ‘that, to win, I shall satisfy these +gentlemen that for the card I played I had a sufficient and good +reason.’ + +“‘Yes.’ + +“‘My reason was this, then--I looked into your hand!’ + +“I pocketed his ten napoleons, but they were the last I won of him. +Indeed, it took a month before he got over the shock.” + +It would be interesting if we had, which unhappily we have not, any +statistical returns to show what classes and professions have produced +the best whist-players. In my own experience I have found civilians the +superiors of the military. + +Diplomatists I should rank first; their game was not alone finer and +more subtle, but they showed a recuperative power in their play +which others rarely possessed: they extricated themselves well out of +difficulties, and always made their losses as small as possible. Where +they broke down was when they were linked with a bad partner: they +invariably played on a level which he could never attain to, and in this +way cross purposes and misunderstandings were certain to ensue. + +Lawyers, as a class, play well; but their great fault is, they play +too much for the _galerie_. The habit of appealing to the jury jags +and blurs the finer edge of their faculties, and they are more prone to +canvass the suffrages of the surrounders than to address themselves to +the actual issue. For this reason, Equity practitioners are superior to +the men in the courts below. + +Physicians are seldom first-rate players--they are always behind their +age in Whist, and rarely, if ever, know any of the fine points which +Frenchmen have introduced into the game. Their play, too, is timid--they +regard trumps as powerful stimulants, and only administer them in +drop-doses. They seldom look at the game as a great whole, but play on, +card after card, deeming each trick they turn as a patient disposed of, +and not in any way connected with what has preceded or is to follow it. + +Divines are in Whist pretty much where geology was in the time of the +first Georges; still I have met with a bishop and a stray archdeacon or +two who could hold their own. I am speaking here of the Establishment, +because in Catholic countries the higher clergy are very often good +players. Antonelli, for instance, might sit down at the Portland or the +Turf; and even my old friend G. P. would find that his Eminence was his +match. + +Soldiers are sorry performers, for mess-play is invariably bad; but +sailors are infinitely worse. They have but one notion, which is to play +out all the best cards as fast as they can, and then appeal to their +partner to score as many tricks as they have--an inhuman performance, +which I have no doubt has cost many apoplexies. + +On the whole, Frenchmen are better players than we are. Their game is +less easily divined, and all their intimations (_invites_) more subtle +and more refined. The Emperor plays well. In England he played a great +deal at the late Lord Eglinton’s, though he was never the equal of +that accomplished Earl, whose mastery of all games, especially those of +address, was perfection. + +The Irish have a few brilliant players--one of them is on the bench; but +the Scotch are the most winning of all British whisters. The Americans +are rarely first-rate, but they have a large number of good second-class +players. Even with them, however, Whist is on the decline; and Euchre +and Poker, and a score more of other similar abominations, have usurped +the place of the king of games. What is to be done to arrest the +progress of this indifferentism?--how are we to awaken men out of the +stupor of this apathy? Have they never heard of the terrible warning +of Talleyrand to his friend who could not play, as he said, “Have you +reflected on the miserable old age that awaits you?” How much of human +nature that would otherwise be unprofitable can be made available by +Whist! What scores of tiresome old twaddlers are there who can still +serve their country as whisters! what feeble intelligences that can +flicker out into a passing brightness at the sight of the “turned +trump”! + +Think of this, and think what is to become of us when the old, the +feeble, the tiresome, and the interminable will all be thrown broadcast +over society without an object or an occupation. Imagine what Bores will +be let loose upon the world, and fancy how feeble will be all efforts +of wit or pleasantry to season a mass of such incapables! Think, I say, +think of this. It is a peril that has been long threatening--even +from that time when old Lord Hertford, baffled and discouraged by +the invariable reply, “I regret, my Lord, that I cannot play Whist,” + exclaimed, “I really believe that the day is not distant when no +gentleman can have a vice that requires more than two people!” + + + + +ONE OF OUR “TWO PUZZLES”. + +The two puzzles of our era are, how to employ our women, and what to do +with our convicts; and how little soever gallant it may seem to place +them in collocation, there is a bond that unites the attempt to keep the +good in virtue with the desire to reform the bad from vice, which will +save me from any imputation of deficient delicacy. + +Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has +been expended in devising occupations where female labour might be +advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more +delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men. +Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph, +have been freely opened--and, I believe, very successfully--to female +skill; and scores of other callings have been also placed at their +disposal: but, strange enough, the more that we do, the more there +remains to be done; and never have the professed advocates of woman’s +rights been so loud in their demands as since we have shared with them +many of what we used to regard as the especial fields of man’s industry. +Women have taken to the practice of Medicine, and have threatened to +invade the Bar--steps doubtless anticipatory of the time when they shall +“rise in the House” or sit on the Treasury benches. Now, I have very +little doubt that we used not to be as liberal as we might in sharing +our callings with women. We had got into the habit of underrating their +capacities, and disparaging their fitness for labour, which was very +illiberal; but let us take care that the reaction does not cany us too +far on the other side, and that in our zeal to make a reparation we only +make a blunder, and that we encourage them to adopt careers and crafts +totally unsuited to their tastes and their powers. + +It is quite clear--in fact, a mere glance at the detail of the +preliminary studies will suffice to show it--that medicine and surgery +should not be shared with them. For a variety of reasons, they ought +not to be encouraged to take holy orders; and, on the whole, it is very +doubtful if it would be a wise step to introduce them into the army, +much less into the navy. Seeing this, therefore, the question +naturally arises, Are women to be the mere drudges--the Helots of our +civilisation? Are we only to employ them in such humble callings as +exclude all ideas of future distinction? A very serious question this, +and one over which I pondered for more than half an hour last night, as +I lay under the influence of some very strong tea and a slight menace of +gout. + +Women are very haughty creatures--very resentful of any supposed +slight--very aggressive, besides, if they imagine the time for attack +favourable. Will they sit down patiently as makers of pill-boxes and +artificial flowers? Will they be satisfied with their small gains and +smaller consideration? Will there not be ambitious spirits amongst +them who will ask, What do you mean to offer us? We are of a class who +neither care to bind books nor draw patterns. We are your equals--if +we were not distinctively modest, we might say something more than +your equals--in acquirement and information. We have our smattering +of physical-science humbug, as you have; we are read up in theological +disputation, and are as ready as you to stand by Colenso against Moses; +in modern languages we are more than your match. What have you to offer +us if we are too proud, or too poor, or too anything else, to stand +waiting for a buyer in the marriage-market of Belgravia? You will not +suffer us to enter the learned professions nor the Service; you will not +encourage us to be architects, attorneys, land-agents, or engineers. We +know and we feel that there is not one of these callings either above +our capacity or unsuited to our habits, but you deny us admittance; and +now we ask, What is your scheme for our employment? what project have +you that may point out to us a future of independence and a station of +respect? Have you such a plan? or, failing it, have you the courage to +proclaim to the world that all your boasted civilisation can offer us +is to become the governesses to the children of our luckier sisters? But +there are many of us totally unsuited to this, brought up with ways +and habits that would make such an existence something very like penal +servitude--what will you do with us? + +With this cry--for it became a cry--in my ears, I tried to go asleep. +I counted seventeen hundred and forty-four; I thought of the sea; I +imagined I was listening to Dr Cumming; and I endeavoured to repeat +a distich of Martin Tupper: but the force of conscience and the congo +carried the day, and I addressed myself vigorously to the question. +I thought of making them missionaries, lighthouse-keepers, lunacy +commissioners, Garter Kings-at-Arms, and suchlike, when a brilliant +thought flashed across my brain, and, with the instinct of a great +success, I saw I had triumphed. “Yes,” cried I aloud, “there is one +grand career for women--a career which shall engage not alone all the +higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call +forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their +tact, their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually +employ the less commendable features of female nature, and find work for +their powers of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion +for intrigue. How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for +of all the careers meant by nature for women, was there any one could +compare with Diplomacy!” + +Here we have at once the long-sought-for career--the _desideratum tanti +studii_--the occupation for which men are too coarse, too clumsy, too +inept, and which requires the lighter touch and more delicate treatment +of female fingers. It is the everyday reproach heard of us abroad, that +our representatives are deficient in those smaller and nicer traits by +which irritations are avoided and unpleasant situations relieved. John, +they say, always imagines that to be national he must be “Bull,” and +toss on his horns “all and every” that opposes him. Now, late events +might have disabused foreign cabinets on this score: a quieter beast +than he has shown himself need not be wished for. Still, he has +bellowed, and lashed his tail, and cut a few absurd capers, to show +what he would be at if provoked; but the world has grown too wise to be +terrified by such exhibitions, and quietly settled down to the opinion +that there is nothing to fear from him. Now, how very differently might +all this have been if the Duchess of S. were Ambassador at Paris, and +the Countess of C. at St Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would +have been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying--none of that blundering +about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress “ought to follow +a war,” and proposing one to-morrow, “to prevent a war.” Women despise +logic, and consequently would not stultify it. A temperance apostle is +not likely to adulterate the liquor that he does not drink; and for +this reason, female intelligence would have escaped this “muddle.” Her +Ladyship would have thrown her blandishments over Rechberg--he is now +of the age when men are easy victims--all the little cajoleries and +flatteries of women’s art would have been exerted first to find out, and +then to thwart, his policy. It is notorious that English diplomacy knows +next to nothing through secret agency. Would such be the case if we had +women as envoys? What mystery would stand the assault of a fine lady, +trained and practised by the habits of her daily life? + +They tell us that our fox-hunters would form the finest scout-cavalry +in Europe; and I am convinced that a London leader of fashion--I have a +dozen in my eye at this moment--would track an intrigue through all its +stages, and learn its intimate details of place and time and agency, +weeks before a merely male intelligence began to suspect the thing was +possible. + +Imagine what a blue-book would be in these times--would there be +any reading could compare with it? We used to admire a certain +diplomatist--a pleasant narrator of court gossip--giving, as he did, +little traits of Kings and Kaisers, and telling us the way in which +majesty was graciously pleased to blow his royal nose. Imagine a female +pen engaged on such themes! What clever and sharp little touches would +reveal the whole tone of a “reception”! We should not be told “His +Majesty received me coldly,” but we would have a beautiful analysis +of the royal mind in all its varied moods of displeasure, concealment, +urbanity, reserve, and deception. Compared with the male version of the +same incident, it would be like Faraday’s report on a case of supposed +poisoning beside the blundering narrative of a country apothecary! + +It is a long time--a very long time--before an old country has energy +enough to throw off any of its accustomed ways. It requires the vigorous +assault of young and sturdy intelligences, and, above all, immense +persistence, to effect it. + +Light comes very slowly indeed through the fog of centuries’ growth, and +there is hope always when even the faintest flicker of a ray pierces the +Boeotian cloud. Now, for some years back, it may have been remarked that +a sort of suspicion has been breaking on the minds of our rulers, that +the finer, the higher, and subtler organisations of women might find +their suitable sphere of occupation in the diplomatic service. + +“I don’t speak German, but I play the German flute,” said the apologetic +gentleman; and so might we say. We don’t engage ladies in diplomacy, +but we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a +well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine +clothes and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, and heart and soul +devoted to royalties, we promote him. If he speak French tolerably, we +make him a Minister; if he be fluent, an Envoy Extraordinary. + +I remember an old medical lecturer in Dublin formerly, who used to hold +forth on the Materia Medica in the hall of the University, and who, +seeing a “student” whose studies had been for some time before pursued +in Germany, appear in the lecture-room, with a note-book and pen to take +down the lecture-- + +“Tell that young gentleman,” said the Professor, “to put up his writing +materials, for there’s not one word he’ll hear from me that he’ll not +find in the oldest editions of the ‘Dublin Pharmacopoeia.’” In the same +spirit our diplomatists may sneer at the call for blue-books. We have +all of us had the whole thing already in the ‘Times;’ and why? Because +we choose to employ unsuitable tools. We want to shave with a hatchet +instead of a razor; for be it remarked, as no things are so essentially +unlike as those that have a certain resemblance, there is nothing in +nature so remote from the truly feminine finesse as the mind of a male +“old woman.” + +It is simply to the flaws and failures of female intelligence that the +parallel applies. A very pleasant old parson, whom I knew when I was a +boy, and who used to discourse to me much about Edmund Burke and Gavin +Hamilton, told me once that he met old Primate Stewart one day returning +from a visitation, and turned his horse round to accompany the carriage +for some distance. “Doctor G.,” said the Archbishop, “you remind me most +strikingly of my friend Paley.” + +“Oh, my Lord, it is too much honour: I have not the shadow of a +pretension to such distinction.” + +“Well, sir, it is true; I have Paley before me as I look at you.” + +“I am overwhelmed by your Lordship’s flattery.” + +“Yes, sir; Paley rode just such another broken-down old grey nag as +that.” + +Do not therefore disparage my plan for the employment of women in +diplomacy by any ungenerous comparisons with the elderly ladies at +present engaged in it. This would be as unfair as it is ungallant. + +There are a variety of minor considerations which I might press into the +cause, but some of them would appeal less to the general mind than to +the official, and I omit them--merely observing what facilities it would +give for the despatch of business, if the Minister, besieged, as he +often now is, by lady-applicants for a husband’s promotion, instead of +the tedious inquiry, “Who is Mr D.?--where has he been?--what has he +done?--what is he capable of?” could simply say, “Make Mrs T. Third +Secretary at Stuttgart, and send Mrs O’Dowd as Vice-Consul to Simoom!” + + + + +A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. + +It is no small privilege to you “gentlemen of England who live at home +at ease,” or otherwise, that you cannot hear how the whole Continent is +talking of you at this moment. We have, as a nation, no small share of +self-sufficiency and self-esteem. If we do not thank God for it, we are +right well pleased to know that we are not like that Publican there, +“who eats garlic, or carries a stiletto, or knouts his servants, or +indulges in any other taste or pastime of ‘the confounded foreigner.’” + The ‘Times’ proclaims how infinitely superior we are every morning; and +each traveller--John Murray in hand--expounds in his bad French, that +an Englishman is the only European native brought up in the knowledge of +truth and the wash-tub. + +By dint of time, iteration, and a considerable amount of that same +French I speak of, an article expressly manufactured for exportation, we +really did at last persuade patient and suffering Europe to take us +at our own valuation. We got them to believe that--with certain little +peculiarities, certain lesser vices, rather amiable than otherwise--no +nation, ancient or modern, could approach us. That we were at one and +the same time the richest, the strongest, the most honourable, the +most courageous people recorded in history; and not alone this, but the +politest and the most conciliatory, with the largest coal-fields and +the best cookery in Europe. Now, there is nothing more damaging than the +witness who proves too much. Miss Edgeworth tells us somewhere, I +think, of an Irish peer who, travelling in France with a negro servant, +directed him, if questioned on the subject, always to say his master was +a Frenchman. He was punctiliously faithful to his orders; but whenever +he said, “My massa a Frenchman,” he always added, “So am I.” + +In the same spirit has Bull gone and damaged himself abroad. He might +have enjoyed an unlimited credit for his stories of English wealth and +greatness--how big was our fleet, and how bitter our beer; he might have +rung the changes over our just pride in our insular position and +our income-tax, and none dared to dispute him; but when, in the warm +expansiveness of his enthusiasm, he proceeded to say, not merely that we +dressed better and dined better than the foreigner, but that our manners +were more polished, our address more insinuating, and the amiability +of our whole social tone more conspicuous, “Mossoo,” taking him to +represent all from Stockholm to Sicily, began to examine for himself, +and after some hesitation to ask, “What if the wealth be only like +the politeness? What if the national character be about as rude as the +cookery? What if English morality turn out to be a jumble and confusion, +very like English-French? Who is to tell us that the coal-fields may not +be as easily exhausted as the civility?” These were very ugly doubts, +and for some years back foreigners, after that slow fashion in which +public opinion moves amongst them, have been turning them over and over, +but in a manner that showed a great revulsion had taken place on the +Continent with regard to the estimate of England. + +A nation usually judges another nation by the individuals and by the +Government. Now it is no calumny to say that, taking them _en masse_, +the English who travel abroad, whether it be from indifference, from +indolence, from a rooted confidence in their own superiority, or +from some defect in character, neither win favour for themselves, nor +affection for their country from foreigners. So long as we were looked +upon, however, as colossal in wealth and power, a certain rude and +abrupt demeanour was taken as the type of a people too practical to +be polished. It grew to be thought that intense activity and untiring +energy had no time to bestow on mere forms. When, however, a suspicion +began to get abroad--it was a cloud no bigger at first than a man’s +hand--that if we had the money it was to hoard it, and if we had the +power it was to withhold its exercise; that we wanted, in fact, to +impose on the world by the menace of a force we never meant to employ, +and to rule Europe as great financiers “bear” the Stock Exchange--then, +and then for the first time, there arose that cry against England as a +sham and an imposition, of which, as I said before, it is very pleasant +for you at home if the sounds have not reached you. + +All our late policy has led to this. Ever ready to join with France, we +always leave her in the lurch. We went with her to Mexico, and left her +when she landed. We did our utmost to launch her into a war for Poland, +in which we had never the slightest intention of joining. Always prompt +for the initiative, we stop short immediately after. I have a friend who +says, “I am very fond of going to church, but I don’t like going in.” + This is exactly the case of England. She won’t go in. + +Now, I am fully persuaded it would have been a mistake to have joined in +the Mexican campaign. I cannot imagine such a congeries of blunders as +a war for the Poles. But why entertain these questions? Why discuss +them in cabinets, and debate them in councils? Why convey the false +impression that you are indignant when you are indifferent, or feel +sympathy for sufferings of which you will do nothing but talk? + +“Masterly inactivity” was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has +led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate +politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were +dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first +of all essential you should show that you could do something very great +if you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb +having observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, the +prestige for this high quality, it was necessary that she should seem +to bestir herself. The British lion must have got up, rolled his eyes +fearfully, and even lashed his tail, before he resolved on the masterly +inactivity of lying down again. + +In Knickerbocker’s ‘History of New York’ we have a very graphic +description of the ship in which the first Dutch explorers sailed for +the shores of North America. “The vessel was called the _Goede Vrouw_ +(Good Woman), a compliment to the wife of the President of the West +India Company, who was allowed by every one, except her husband, to be +a sweet-tempered lady--when not in liquor. It was, in truth, a gallant +vessel of the most approved Dutch construction--made by the ablest +ship-carpenters of Amsterdam, who, as is well known, always model their +ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had +one hundred feet in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one +hundred feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrel. Like the +beauteous model, who was declared to be the greatest belle of +Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a +copper-bottom, and withal a prodigious poop.” + +It is, however, with her sailing qualities we are more interested than +with her build. “Thus she made as much lee-way as head-way--could +get along nearly as fast with the wind ahead as at poop, and was +particularly great in a calm.” Would not one say, in reading this +description, that the humorist was giving prophetically a picture of the +England of the present day, making as much lee-way as head-way, none the +better, wherever the winds came from, and only great in a calm? The very +last touch he gives is exquisite. “Thus gallantly furnished, she floated +out of harbour sideways, like a majestic goose.” Can anything be more +perfect; can anything more neatly typify the course the vessel of the +State is taking, “floating out sideways, like a majestic goose!” amidst +the jeers and mockeries of beholding Europe. + +Our whole policy consists in putting forward some hypothetical case, in +which, if certain other states were to do something which would cause +another country to do something else, then England would be found in +that case---- God forgive me! + +I was going to quote some of that balderdash which reminds one of ‘The +Rivals,’ where Acres says, “If you had called me a poltroon, Sir Lucas!” + +“Well, sir, and if I had?” + +“In that case I should have thought you a very ill-bred man.” + +See what it is to have a literary Foreign Secretary; see how he +goes back to our great writers, not alone for his style, but his +statesmanship. We have been insulted, mocked, and sneered at; our +national honour derided, our national strength defied; but we are told +it is all right: our policy is a “masterly inactivity,” and the Funds +are at ninety-one and one-eighth! + +The ‘Times.’ too, is of the same cheery and encouraging spirit, and +philosophically looks on the misfortunes of our friends pretty much +as friends’ misfortunes are usually regarded in life--occasions for a +tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them--the writer +speaks of the Allied armies--let them go on in the career of rapine and +cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time +will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be +retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on +the soil of the Fatherland. + +“They are going to hang Larry,” cried the wife of a condemned felon to +the lawyer, who had hurried into court, having totally forgotten he had +ever engaged to defend the prisoner. + +“Let them hang him, and I’ll make it the dearest hanging ever they +hanged.” + +These may be words of comfort in Downing Street. I wonder what the Danes +think of them? + + + + +A NEW HANSARD. + +There is an annual publication called the ‘Wreck Register,’ which +probably few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to +record all the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, +accompanying the narrative by such remarks or observations as may +contribute to explain each catastrophe, or offer likelihood of +prevention in future. It is, though thoroughly divested of any +sensational character, one of the dreariest volumes one can take up. +Disaster follows disaster so fast, that at length the reader begins to +imagine that shipwreck is the all but invariable event of a voyage, +and that they who cross the ocean in safety are the lucky mortals of +humanity. + +Fortunately, however, long as the catalogue of misfortune is, this +is not the case, and we have the satisfaction of learning that the +percentage of loss is decreasing with every year. The higher knowledge +and attainments of merchant captains, and the increase of refuge +harbours, are the chief sources of this security. The old ignorance, in +which a degree or two of latitude more or less was a light error in a +ship’s reckoning, is now unheard of, and they who command merchant-ships +in our day are a very well informed and superior order of men. With +reference to the conduct and capacity of these captains, this ‘Wreck +Register,’ is a very instructive publication. If, for instance, you +find that Captain Brace, who was wrecked on the Azores in ‘52, was again +waterlogged at sea in ‘61, and ran into an iceberg off Newfoundland +in ‘62, you begin, mayhap unfairly, to couple him too closely with +disaster, and you turn to the inquest over his calamities to see what +estimate was formed of his conduct. You learn, possibly, that in +one case he was admonished to more caution; in another, honourably +acquitted; and in the last instance smartly reprimanded, and his +certificate suspended for six months or a year. Now, though you have +never heard of Captain Brace in your life, nor are probably likely to +encounter him on sea or land, you cannot avoid a certain sense of relief +at the thought that so unlucky a commander, to say the least of it, +is not likely for a while to imperil more lives, and that the warning +impressed by his fate will also be a salutary lesson to many others. + +It was in reflecting over this system of inquiry and sentence, that +it occurred to me what to admirable thing it would be to introduce +the ‘Wreck Register’ into politics, and to have a yearly record of all +parliamentary shipwrecks; all the bills that foundered, the motions that +were stranded, the amendments lost in a fog!--to be able to look back +and reflect over the causes of these disasters, investigating patiently +how and why and where they happened, and asking ourselves, Have we +any better security for the future? are we better acquainted with the +currents, the soundings, or the headlands? and, above all, what amount +of blame, if any, is attributable to the commander? + +If we find, for instance, that the barque Young Reform, no matter how +carefully fitted out for sea--new sheathed and coppered, with bran-new +canvass, and a very likely crew on board--never leaves the port that +she does not come back crippled; and that old and experienced captains, +however confidently they may take the command at first, frankly own that +they’ll never put foot in her again, you very naturally begin to suspect +that there’s something wrong in her build. She is either too unwieldy, +like the Great Eastern, or she is too long to turn well, or she requires +such incessant repair; or, most fatal of all, she is entered for a trade +where nobody wants her; and therefore you resolve that, come what will, +you’ll avoid her. + +What an inestimable benefit to the student of politics would a few such +brief notices be, instead of sending him, as we send him now, to the +dreary pages of Hansard! Imagine what a neat system of mnemonics would +grow out of the plan, when, instead of poring over interminable columns +of tiresome repetition, you had the whole narrative in few words--thus: +“Barque Reform, John Russell, commander, lost A.D. 1854 The +Commissioners seeing that this vessel was built for the most part of +old materials, totally unseaworthy, are of opinion that she ought not +to have sailed at all; and severely censure the commander, J. R, for +foolhardiness and obstinacy, he having, as it has been proved, acted +in entire opposition to ‘his owners.’ On the pressing recommendation, +however, of the owners, and at the representation that E. has been long +in the service, and is, although too self-confident, a very respectable +man, his certificate has been restored to him.” + +Lower down comes the entry:-- + +“The Young Reform.--This was a full-rigged ship, in great part +constructed on the lines of the barque lost in 1854. She sailed on the +28th February 1859, commanded by Captain Dizzy. No insurance could be +effected upon her on any terms, as the crew were chiefly apprentices, +and a very mutinous spirit aboard. She put back, completely crippled, +after three days’ stormy weather; and though the commander averred that +some enemies of his owners had laid down false buoys in the channel, he +was not listened to by the Commissioners, who withheld his certificate. +Has never been employed since, and his case by many considered a very +hard one.” + +Of course, all the small class of coasting vessels--railroad bills and +suchlike--suffer great losses. They are usually ill-found and badly +manned; but now and then we come upon curious escapes, where a measure +slips through unobserved, like a blockade-runner; and it is ten to one +in such cases they have that crafty old pilot Pam on board, who has been +more than fifty years at sea, and is as wide awake now as on his first +day. + +What analogies press in on every hand! Look at the way each party bids +for and buys up the old materials of the other, fancying they have some +“lines” of their own that will turn out a clipper to beat everything. +And think of those “Sailors’ Homes,” where old salts chew their quids at +ease--those snug permanent Under-Secretaryships, those pleasant asylums +in the Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in +Downing Street, where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not +at once before you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the “ordinary +seaman” higgling for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging +that his grog may not be watered? And, last of all, see the old +lighthouse-keepers, the veteran First Clerks who serve every +Administration, and keep their lamps bright for all parties--a fine set +of fellows in their way, though some people will tell you that they have +their favourites too, and are not so brisk about the fog-signals if they +don’t like the skipper. + +I think I have done enough to show that such a work as I speak of would +redound to public benefit; and I only ask, if my suggestion be approved +of, that I may be remembered as the inventor, and not treated as +Admiralty Lords do the constructors of new targets, testing the metal +and torturing the man. Bear in mind, therefore, if the political ‘Wreck +Register’ be ever carried into execution, its device must be “O’Dowdius +fecit.” + +It might not be amiss, in the spirit that has suggested this +improvement, to organise in connection with the proceedings of the House +a code of signals on the plan of Admiral Fitzroy’s storm-signals, and +which, from the great tower, or some similar eminence, might acquaint +members what necessity for their presence existed. Fancy, for instance, +the relief an honourable gentleman would experience on seeing the +fine-weather flag up, and knowing thereby that something of no moment +was being discussed--a local railroad, a bill to enable some one to +marry his grandmother, or a measure for Ireland! Imagine the fog-signal +flying, and see how instantaneously it would he apprehended that D. G. +was asking the noble Lord at the head of the Government a question so +intensely absurd as to show a state of obscurity in his own faculties, +in comparison to which fog is a thin atmosphere! Or mark what excitement +would be felt as the storm-drum was hoisted, telling how the Government +craft was being buffeted and knocked about, and the lifeboat of the +Opposition manned to take charge of the ship if abandoned! What a mercy +to those poor, hard-worked, harassed, and wearied “whips”! what a +saving there would be in club-frequenting and in cab-hire! Now would the +lounger, as he strolled along Pall-Mall, say, “No need to hurry.” + “light airs of wind from the east” means a member for Galway and some +balderdash about the Greeks. “Thick weather in the Channel” implies +troubles in Ireland--nothing very new or interesting. “Dirty weather +to the east’ard” would show mischief in the Danubian provinces, and a +general sense of unquiet in the regions of the Sultan Redcliffe. These +are hints which I have not patented, and the chances are that “My Lords” + will speedily adopt them, and call them their own. + + + + +FOREIGN CLUBS. + +How is it, will any one tell me, that all foreign Clubs are so ineffably +stupid? I do not suspect that we English are pre-eminent for social +gifts; and yet we are the only nation that furnishes clubable men. +Frenchmen are wittier, Germans profounder, Russians--externally at +least--more courteous and accommodating; and yet their Clubs are mere +_tripots_--gambling establishments; and, except play, no other feature +of Club-life is to be found in them. + +To give a Club its peculiar “cachet”--its, so to say, trade-mark--you +require a class of men who make the Club their home, and whose interest +it is that all the internal arrangements should be as perfect, as well +ordered, and frictionless as may be. Good furniture, good servants, good +lighting, good cookery, well-adjusted temperature, and a well-chosen +cellar, are all essentials. In a word, the Club is to be the realisation +of what we all think so much of--comfort. Now, how very few foreigners +either understand or care for this! Every one who has travelled abroad +has seen the “Cercle,” or “L’Union,” or whatever its name be, where +men of the highest station--ministers, ambassadors, generals, and +suchlike--met to smoke and play whist, with a sanded floor, a dirty +attendance, and yet no one ever complained. They drank detestable beer, +and inhaled a pestilent atmosphere, and sat in draughts, without a +thought that there was anything to be remedied, or that human skill +could or need contrive anything better for their accommodation. + +When these establishments were succeeded by the modern Club, with its +carpeted floor, silk hangings, ormolu lamps, and velvet couches, the +change was made in a pure spirit of Anglomanie; somebody had been over +to London, and come back full of the splendours of Pall-Mall. The work +of imitation, so far as decoration went, was not difficult. Indeed, in +some respects, in this they went beyond us, but there ended the success. +The Club abroad is a room where men gamble and talk of gambling, but no +more; it is not a Club. + +For the working of the Club, as for that of constitutional government, a +special class are required. It, is the great masses of the middle ranks +in England, varied enough in fortune, education, habits, and tastes, but +still one in some great condition of a status, that supply the materials +for the work of a parliamentary government; and it is through the supply +of a large community of similar people that Clubs are maintained in +their excellence with us. + +For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable +of all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club, +not alone to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to +interchange thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club +imparts; to hear the gossip of the day told in the spirit of men of +their own leanings; to ascertain what judgments are passed on public +events and public characters by the people they like to agree with;--in +fact, to give a sort of familiar domestic tone to intercourse, +suggesting the notion that the Club is a species of sanctuary where men +can talk at their ease. The men who furnish this category with us are +neither young nor old, they are the middle-aged, retaining some of the +spring and elasticity of youth, but far more inclining to the solidity +of riper years. If they frequent the Opera, it is to a stall, not to the +_coulisses_, they go. They are more critical than they used to be +about their dinners, and they have a tendency to mix seltzer with their +champagne. They have reached that bourne in which egotism has become an +institution; and by the transference of its working to the Club, they +accomplish that marvellous creation by which each man sees himself and +his ways and his wants and his instincts reflected in a thousand varied +shapes. + +Now, there are two things no nation of the Continent possesses--Spring, +and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell--some +have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for +sixty years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral +territory--no _mezzo termine_. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must +serve as a Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the absence of all serious +interest in life, which mark the leisure classes abroad, follow men +sometimes even to extreme old age. The successive changes of temperament +and taste which we mark at home have no correlatives abroad. +The foreigner inhabits at sixty the same sort of world he did at +six-and-twenty: he does not dance so much, but he lingers in the +ballroom, and he is just as keenly alive to all the little naughty talk +that amused him forty years ago, and folly as much interested to hear +that the world is just as false and as wicked as it used to be when he +was better able to contribute to its frailty and wickedness. + +Not one of these men, with their padded pectorals and dyed whiskers, +will admit that they are of an age to require comfort. They are ardent +youths all of them, turning night into day as of old, and no more +sensible of fatigue from late hours, hot rooms, and dissipation, than +they were a quarter of a century back. + +Can you fancy anything less clubable than a set of men like this? You +might as well set before me the stale bon-bons and sugar-plums of a +dessert for a dinner, as ask me to take such people for associates and +companions. The tone of everlasting trifling disgraces even idleness; +and these men contrive in their lives to reverse the laws of physics, +since it is by their very levity that they fall. + +The humoristic temperament is the soul of Club-life. It is the keen +appreciation of others in all their varied moods and shades of feeling +that imparts the highest enjoyment to that strange democracy, the +Club; and foreigners are immensely deficient in this element. They are +infinitely readier, smarter, and wittier than Englishmen. They will hit +in an epigram what we would take an hour to embrace in an argument; but +for the racy pleasure of seeing how such a man will listen to this, +what such another will say to that, how far individuality, in fact, will +mould and fashion the news of the day, and assimilate its mental food +to its own digestive powers, there is nothing like the Englishman--and +especially the Englishman of the Club. + +There is nothing like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten +to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in +the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and +obligingness, that we find the purest element of Club-life. + +The Parisian are the best--far and away the best--of all foreign Clubs; +best in their style of “get-up,” decoration, and arrangement, and best +also in tone and social manner. The St Petersburg Club is the most +gorgeous, the habits the most costly, the play the highest. It is not +very long since that a young Russian noble lost in one evening a sum +equal to a hundred thousand pounds. The Vienna Club is good in its own +stiff German way; but, generally speaking, German Clubs are very ill +arranged, dirty, and comfortless. The Italian are better. Turin, Naples, +and Florence have reasonably good Clubs. Home has nothing but the +thing called the English Club, a poorly-got-up establishment of small +whist-players and low “points.” + +It is a very common remark, that costume has a great influence +over people’s conduct, and that the man in his shooting-jacket will +occasionally give way to impulsive outbursts that he had never thought +of yielding to in his white-cravat moments. Whether this be strictly +true or not, there is little doubt that the style and character of the +room a man sits in insensibly affects his manner and his bearing, and +that the habits which would not be deemed strange in the low-ceilinged +chamber, with the sanded floor and the “mutton lights,” would be totally +indecorous in the richly-carpeted room, a blaze of wax-light, and +glittering with decoration. Now this alternating between Club and _Café_ +spoils men utterly. It engenders the worst possible style--a double +manner. The over-stiffness here and the over-ease there are alike +faulty. + +The great, the fatal defect of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of +some one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of +presumed superiority and affectation of “knowing the whole thing,” + browbeat and ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want +of that wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is +possible. Of public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any +shape; and yet it is by the unwritten judgments of such a tribunal that +society is guided in England, and the same law that discourages the +bully supports and encourages the timid, without either the one or the +other having the slightest power to corrupt the court, or coerce its +decrees. Club-life is, in a way, the normal school for parliamentary +demeanour; and until foreigners understand the Club, they will never +comprehend the etiquette of the “Chamber.” + + + + +A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. + +I have frequently heard medical men declare that no test of a +candidate’s fitness to be admitted as a physician was equal to a brief +examination at the bedside of a sick man. To be able to say, “There is +a patient; tell us his malady, and what you will do for it,” was +infinitely better than long hours spent in exploring questions of minute +anatomy and theoretical physic. In fact, for all practical purposes, +it was more than likely he would be the best who would make the least +brilliant figure in an examination; and the man whose studies had +familiarised him with everything from Galen to John Hunter, would cut +just as sorry a figure if called on to treat a case of actual malady. + +It cannot possibly be otherwise. All that mere examination can effect, +is to investigate whether an individual has duly prepared himself +for the discharge of certain functions; but it never can presume to +ascertain whether the person is one fitted by nature, by habit, by +taste, or inclination, for the duties before him. Why, the student who +may answer the most abstruse questions in anatomy, may himself have +nerves so weak as to faint at the sight of blood. The physician who has +Paracelsus by heart, may be so deficient in that tact of eye, or ear, +or touch, as to render his learning good for nothing. Half an hour in +an hospital would, however, test these qualities. You would at once see +whether the candidate was a mere mass of book-learning, or whether he +was one skilled in the aspect of disease, trained to observe and +note all the indications of malady, and able even instantaneously to +pronounce upon the gravity of a case before him. This is exactly what +you want. No examination of a man’s biceps and deltoid, the breadth of +his chest or the strength of his legs, would tell you whether he was +a good swimmer--five minutes in deep water would, however, decide the +matter. + +Now, I shall not multiply arguments to prove my position. I desire to be +practical in these “O’Dowdiana,” and I strive not to be prosy. What +I would like, then, is to introduce this system of--let us call +it--Test-examination, into the Civil Service. + +I have the highest respect for the pedagogues of Burlington House. I +think highly of Ollendorff and I believe Colenso’s Arithmetic a great +institution. I venerate the men who invent the impossible questions; but +I own I have the humblest opinion of those who answer them. I’d as soon +take a circus-horse, trained to fire a pistol and sit down like a dog, +to carry me across a stiff country, as I’d select one of these fellows +for an employ which required energy, activity, or ready-wittedness. +There is no such inefficiency as self-sufficiency; and this is the +very quality instilled by the whole system. Ask the veterans of the +Admiralty, the War Office, the Board of Trade, and the Customs, and +you will get but the same report, that for thorough incompetency and +inordinate conceit there is nothing like the prize candidate of a Civil +Service examination. Take my word for it, you could not find a worse +pointer than the poodle which would pick you out all the letters of the +alphabet. + +What I should therefore suggest is, to introduce into the Civil Service +something analogous to this clinical examination; something that might +test the practical fitness of the candidate, and show, not whether +the man has been well prepared by a “grinder,” but whether he be a +heaven-born tide-waiter, one of Nature’s own gaugers or vice-consuls. + +I know it is not easy to do this in all cases. There are employments, +too, wherein it is not called for. Mere clerkship, for instance, is an +occupation of such uniformity that a man is just like a sewing-machine, +and where, the work being adjusted to him, he performs it as a matter of +routine. There are, however, stations which are more or less provocative +of tact and ready-wittedness, and which require those qualities which +schoolmasters cannot give nor Civil Service examiners take away; such as +tact, promptitude, quickness in emergency, good-natured ease, patience, +and pluck above all. These, I say, are great gifts, and it would be well +if we knew how to find them. Let us take, by way of illustration, the +Messenger Service. These Foreign Office Mercuries, who travel the whole +globe at a pace only short of the telegraph, are wonderful fellows, and +must of necessity be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, +and yet how easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be +equal to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad roads +and bad dinners, bad servants and bad smells! How patient they must be +here--how peremptory there! How they must train their stomach to +long fastings, and their skins to little soap! What can Civil Service +examination discover of all or any of these aptitudes? Is it written in +Ollendorf, think you, how many hours a man can sit in a caleche? Will +decimal fractions support his back or strengthen his lumbar vertebrae? +What system of inquiry will declare whether the weary traveller will not +oversleep himself, or smash the head of his postilion for not awaking +him at a frontier? How will you test readiness, endurance, politeness, +familiarity with ‘Bradshaw’ and Continental moneys? + +I think I have hit on a plan for this, suggested to me, I frankly own, +by analogy with the clinical system. I would lay out the Green Park--it +is convenient to Downing Street, and well suited to the purpose--as +a map of Europe, marking out the boundaries of each country, and +stationing posts to represent capital cities. At certain frontiers I +would station representatives of the different nations as distinctly +marked as I could procure them: that is to say, I’d have a very polite +Frenchman, a very rude and insolent Prussian, a sulky Belgian, a roguish +Italian, and an extremely dirty Russian. Leicester Square could supply +all. It being all duly prepared, I’d start my candidate, with a heavy +bag filled with its usual contents of, let us say, a large box of +cigars, a set of fire-irons, twenty pots of preserved meats, a case +of stuffed birds, four cricket-balls, and a photograph machine, some +blue-books, and a dozen of blacking. I’d start him with this, saying +simply, “Vienna, calling at Stuttgart and Turin;” not a word more; +and then I’d watch my man--how he’d cross the Channel--how he’d cajole +Moossoo--and whether he’d make straight for the Rhine or get entangled +in Belgian railroads. I’d soon see how he dealt with the embarrassments +of the roads and relished the bad diet; and not alone would I test him +by hardships and hunger, fatigue and occasional upsets; but I’d try +his powers of self-resistance by surrounding him with dissolute young +_attachés_ given to blind hookey and lansquenet. I’d have him invited +to ravishing orgies, and tempted in as many ways as St Anthony; and +all these after long privations. Then, I’d have him kept waiting either +under a blazing sun or a deep snow, or both alternately, to test his +cerebral organisation; and I’d try him with impure drinking water and +damp sheets; and, last of all, on his return, I’d make him pass his +accounts before some old monster of official savagery, who would +repeatedly impugn his honesty, call out for vouchers, and d--n his +eyes. The man “who came out strong” after all these difficulties I would +accept as fully equal to his responsibilities, for it would not be alone +in intellectuals he had been tested: the man’s temper, his patience, his +powers of endurance, his physical strength, his resources in emergency, +his readiness to meet difficulty, and, last of all, his self-devotion +in matters of official discipline, enabling him to combine with all the +noble qualities of a man the submissive attractions of a spaniel. + +“Are you sure,” asks some one, “that all these graces and +accomplishments can be had for £500 per annum?” Not a doubt of it. It is +a cheap age we live in; and if you wanted a shipload of clever fellows +for a new colony, I’d engage to supply you on easier terms than with the +same number of gardeners or strong-boned housemaids. + +Last of all, this scheme might be made no small attraction in this +economical era--what is called self-supporting; for the public might be +admitted to paid seats, whence they could learn European geography by a +new and easy method. “Families admitted at a reduced rate--Schools and +Seminaries half-price.” + + + + +OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. + +Whenever the Budget comes on for discussion there are some three or four +speakers, of whom Mr Williams of Lambeth is sure to be one, ready to +suggest certain obvious economies by the suppression of some foreign +missions, such as Dresden, Hanover, Stuttgart, &c. They have not, it is +true, anything forcible or pungent to say on the subject; but as they +say the same thing every year, the chances are that, on the drip-drip +principle, they will at last succeed either in abolishing these +appointments, or reducing the salaries of those who hold them. + +Ministers of course defend them, and Opposition leaders, who hope +one day to be Ministers, will also blandly say a word or two in their +favour. For my own part, I don’t think the country cares much about the +matter, or interests itself more deeply who drones away life at Hanover +than who occupies an apartment at Hampton Court. In each case it is a +sort of dowager asylum, where antiquated respectability may rest and be +thankful. + +The occupants of these snug berths, however far from England--at least +in so far as regards any knowledge of public opinion--are sure to +be greatly alarmed at these suggestions for their suppression. Poor +pigeons! if you only knew what a sorry sportsman it is who fires at you, +you’d never flutter a wing. Be of good heart, I say. Even if Williams’s +gun go off at all, the recoil may hurt himself, but it will never damage +you. Take my word for it, “the smooth-Bore of Lambeth never hit +anything yet.” This assurance of mine--I have given it scores of times +personally--never gives the comfort that it ought; for these timid +souls, bullied by long dealings with the Office--tormented, as +Mr Carlyle would say, with much First Clerk--grow to be easily +panic-stricken, and have gloomy nightmares of a time when there shall be +no more life-certificates nor any quarter-days. + +I cannot enter into their feelings, but I suppose they are reasonable. +I conclude that one would like to have a salary, and to be paid it +punctually. Self-preservation is a law that we all recognise; and some +of these officials may possibly feel that there is no other line of life +open to them, and that, if you take away from them their mission, +they will be poor indeed. You will think me perhaps as absurd as Mrs +Nickleby, who connected roast-pork and canaries, if I confess to you +that it is an old mastiff that my father had when I was a boy that +brought these people very forcibly to my mind. Poor old Turco!--I +can’t know how old he was, but he was nearly blind, exceedingly feeble, +intensely stupid, and much given to sleep. Still, whenever any one of +the family--he didn’t mind the servants--would go out to the stableyard, +he’d rouse himself up, and, affecting to believe it was an intruder, +he’d give a fierce bark or two, when, discovering his error, he’d wag +his tail and go back to his den--all this being evidently done to show +that he was as vigilant as ever--a sort of protest, that said, “Don’t +believe one word about my being blind and toothless, still less flatter +yourself that the place is secure. It requires all my activity and +watchfulness to protect; but go back in peace, I’m ready for them.” + +Now, this is exactly what Turco is doing at Munich and Dresden. Whenever +Williams comes out with a hint that he is not wanted, Turco makes a +furious noise, rushes here and there after a turkey-cock if he can find +one, and thoroughly satisfies the family that he is an invaluable beast, +and could not be dispensed with. + +Like Turco, too, who always barked, or tried to bark, whenever he heard +any noise or commotion going on outside, these people are sure to make +an uproar if there be any excitement in their neighbourhood. No sooner +did Schleswig-Holstein begin to trouble the world, than despatches +began to pour in from places that a few weeks before even the messengers +scarcely knew on the map. They related interviews with unknown princes +and unheard-of ministers, and spoke of hopes, fears, wishes, and +anxieties of people who had not, to our appreciation, a more palpable +existence than the creatures of the heathen mythology! Much grumbling, +and sore of ear, Williams goes back to his kennel. + +“What! suppress the mission at Hohen-Schwein-stadt, when I hold here,” + exclaims the Minister, “the admirable report of our diplomatic agent +on the state of public feeling in that important capital? Will the +honourable gentleman, to whose long experience of foreign politics I am +ready to bow, inform me how the relations of England with the +Continent are to be carried on unless through the intervention of +such appointments? Can the honourable member for ------” (a shipowner, +perhaps) “carry on his great and important business without agencies? +Can the honourable gentleman himself” (a brewer) “be certain that the +invigorating and admirable produce of his manufacture will attain the +celebrity that it merits, or become the daily beverage of countless +thousands in the tropics, unassisted by those aids which to commerce +or diplomacy are alike indispensable?” This is very like the Premier’s +eloquence. I almost think I am listening to him, and even see the smile +of triumph with which he appeals at the peroration to his friends to +cheer him. Turco is safe this time; and, better still, he need never +bark again till next Easter and another Budget. + +It is a very curious thing--it opens a whole realm of speculation--how +small and few are the devices of humanity. We fancy we are progressing +simply because we change. We give up alchemy, and we believe in +medicine; we scout witchcraft, and we take to spirit-rapping; +and instead of monasteries and monks, we have missions and +plenipotentiaries. If it be a fine thing to die for one’s country, it’s +a pleasant one to live for it; to know that you inhabit an impenetrable +retreat, which no “Own Correspondents” ever invade, and where, if it was +not for Williams, no sense of fear or alarm could come to disturb the +tranquil surface of a stagnant existence. + +It is astonishing, too, what a wholesome dread and apprehension of +England and English power is maintained through the means of these small +legations in secluded spots of the Continent, in remote little duchies, +without trade or commerce, far away from the sea, where no one ever +heard of imports or exports, and the name of Gladstone had never been +spoken. In such places as these, a meddlesome old envoy, with plenty of +spare time on hand, often gets us thoroughly hated, always referring +to England as a sort of court of last appeal on every question, social, +moral, religious, or political, and dimly alluding to Lord Palmerston as +a kind of Rhadamanthus, whose judgments fall heavily on ill-doers. + +The helpless hopeless condition of small states in all such conflicts +was actually pitiable. The poor little trembling King Charles dog in the +cage of the lion, and who felt that he only lived on sufferance, was the +type of them. I remember an incident which occurred some years ago +at the Bagni di Lucca, which will illustrate what I mean. An English +stranger at one of the hotels, after washing his hands, threw his +basinful of soap-and-water out of the window just as the Grand-duke was +passing, deluging his imperial highness from head to foot. The stranger +hurried at once to the street, and, throwing himself before the dripping +sovereign, made the most humble and apologetic excuses for his act; but +the Grand-duke stopped him short at once, saying, “There, there! say no +more of it: don’t mention the matter to any one, or I shall get into a +correspondence with Palmerston, and be compelled to pay a round sum to +you for damages!” + +After all, one could say for these small posts in diplomacy what, I +think it was Croker said for certain rotten boroughs in former days, “If +you had not had such posts, you would have lost the services of a number +of able and instructive men, who, entering public life by the small +door, are sure to leave it by the grand entrance.” + +These small missions are very often charming centres of society in +places one would scarcely hope for it; and from these little-known +legations, every now and then, issue men whom it would not be safe for +Williams to bark at, and whom, even if he were rabid, he would not bite. + + + + +DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. + +What a number of ingenious reasons have been latterly given for the +decline of the Drama, and the decrease of interest now felt for the +stage. Some aver that people are nowadays too cultivated, too highly +educated, to take pleasure in a play; others opine that the novel has +supplanted the drama; others again declare that it is the prevalence +of a religious sentiment on the subject that has damaged theatrical +representation. For my own part, I take a totally different view of the +subject. My notion is this: the world will never pay a high price for +an inferior article, if it can obtain a first-rate one for nothing; in +other words, people are come to the conclusion that the best actors are +not to be found on the boards of the Haymarket or the Adelphi, but +in the world at large--at the Exchange, in the parks, on railroads or +river-steamers, at the soirées of learned societies, in Parliament, at +Civic dinners or Episcopal visitations. + +Why has the masquerade ceased to interest and amuse? Simply because no +travestie of costume, no change of condition, is so strikingly ludicrous +as what we see on every side of us. The illiterate man with the revenue +of a prince; the millionaire who cannot write his name, and whom +yesterday we saw as a navvy; the Emperor who, a few years back, lodged +over the bootmaker’s; the out-at-elbow followers of imperial fortune, +now raised to the highest splendour, and dispensing hospitalities more +than regal in magnificence;--these are the spectacles which make the +masquerade a tiresome mockery; and it is exactly because we get the +veritable article for nothing that we neither seek playhouse nor +ballroom, but go out into the streets and highways for our drama, +and take our Kembles and Macreadys as we find them at taverns, at +railway-stations, on the grassy slopes of Malvern, or the breezy cliffs +of Brighton. Once admit that the wild-flower plucked at random has more +true delicacy of tint and elegance of form, and there is no going back +to the tasteless mockery of artificial wax and wire. The broad boards of +real life are the true stage; and he who cannot find matter of interest +or amusement in the piece performed, may rely upon it that the cause is +in himself, and not in the drama. Some will say, The world is just what +it always was. People are no more fictitious now than at any other time. +There was always, and there will be always, a certain amount of false +pretension in life which you may, if you like, call acting. And to this +I demur _in toto_, and assert that as every age has its peculiar +stamp of military glory, or money-seeking, or religious fervour, or +dissipation, or scientific discovery, or unprofitable trifling, so the +mark of our own time will be found to be its thorough unreality. Every +one is in travestie. Selfishness is got up to play philanthropy, apathy +to perform zeal, intense self-seeking goes in for love of country; and, +to crown all, one of the most ordinary and vulgar minds of all Europe +now directs and disposes of the fate and fortunes of all Christendom. + +Daily habit familiarises us with the acting of the barrister. His +generous trustfulness, his love of all that is good, his scorn for Vice, +his noble pity, and the withering sarcasm with which he scathes the +ill-doer, we know, can be had, in common cases, for ten pounds ten +shillings; and five times as much will enlist in our service the same +qualities in a less diluted form; while, by quadrupling the latter sum, +we arrive at a self-devotion before which brotherly love pales, and old +friendships seem a cold and selfish indifferentism. We had contracted +for this man’s acuteness, his subtlety, his quick perception, and his +ready-wittedness; but he gives, besides these, his hearty trustfulness, +his faith in our honour, his conviction in our integrity: he knows our +motives; he has been inside our bosom, and comes out to declare that all +is pure and spotless there; and he does this with a trembling lip and a +swelling throat, the sweat on his brow and the tear in his eye, it being +all the while a matter of mere accident that he had not been engaged on +the opposite side, and all the love he bears us been “briefed” for the +defendant. + +Look at the physician, too. Who is it, then, enters the sick-room with +the footfall of a cat, and draws our curtain as gently as a zephyr might +stir a rose-leaf, whose tender accents fall softly on our ear, and who +asks with the fondest anxiety how we have passed the night? Who is +it that cheers, consoles, encourages, and supports us? Who associates +himself with our sufferings, and winces under our pain, and as suddenly +rallies as we grow better, and joins in our little sickbed drolleries? +Who does all these?--a consummate actor, who takes from thirty to forty +daily “benefits,” and whose performances are paid at a guinea a scene! + +The candidate on the hustings, the Government commissioner on his tour +of inspection, the vicar-general of my lord bishop, the admiral on his +station, the minister at the grand-ducal Court, are all good specimens +of common acting--parts which can be filled with very ordinary +capacities, and not above the powers of everyday artists. They conjugate +but one verb, and on its moods and tenses they trade to the end of the +chapter. These men never soar into the heroic regions of the drama; +they infuse no imagination into their parts. They are as unpoetical as a +lord-in-waiting. There are but two stops on their organ. They are bland, +or they are overbearing; they are either beautifully gentle, or they are +terrible in their wrath. + +It is a strange feature of our age that the highest walk of the +real-life drama should be given up to the men of money, and that Finance +should be the most suggestive of all that is creative, fanciful, and +imaginative. What a commentary on our era! It is no paradox I pronounce +here. The greatest actor I ever saw, the most consummate artist, was a +railroad contractor; that is, he had more persuasiveness, more of that +magnetic captivation which subordinates reason to mere hope, than +any one I ever listened to. He scorned the pictorial, he despised all +landscape effects, he summoned to his aid no assistance from gorge or +mountain, no deep-bosomed wood or bright eddying river; he was a man of +culverts and cuttings, of quartz and limestone and flint; with a glance +he could estimate traffic, and with the speed of the lightning-flash +tell you what dividend could come of the shares. + +It was, however, in results that he was grandiose. Hear him on the theme +of a completed line, a newly-opened tunnel, or a finished viaduct--it +was a Poem! Such a picture of gushing beatitude as he could paint! It +was the golden age--prosperity, happiness, and peace on every side; +the song of the husbandman at his plough mingling with the hum of the +village school; the thousand forms of civilisation, from cheap sugar to +penny serials, that would permeate the land; the peasant studying +social science over his tea, and the railway-guard supping his “cheap +Gladstone” as he speculated on the Antiquity of Man. Never was such an +Eden on earth, and all to be accomplished at the cost of a mere million +or two, with a “limited liability.” + +With what a grand contempt this great man talked of the people who +busied themselves in the visionary pursuits of politics or literature, +or who devoted themselves to the Arts or Field-sports! With him +earthworks were the grandest achievements of humanity, and there was +no such civiliser as a parliamentary train. Had he been simply an +enthusiast, that fatal false logic that _will_ track enthusiasm--however +it be guided--would have betrayed him: but the man was not an +enthusiast--he was a great actor; and while to capitalists and +speculators he appealed by all the seductive inducements of profits, +premiums, and preference shares, to the outer and unmoneyed world he +made his approaches by a beautiful and touching philanthropy. + +Did he believe in all this? Heaven knows. He talked and acted as if he +did; and though, when I last saw him, he had smashed his banker, +ruined his company, and beggared the shareholders, he was high-hearted, +hopeful, and buoyant as ever. It was a general who had lost a battle, +but he meant to recruit another army. It was some accidental rumour of +a war--some stupid disturbance on the Danube or the Black Sea--that +had frightened capital and made “money tight.” The scheme itself was +a glorious project--an unrivalled investment. Never was there such a +paying line--innumerable towns, filled with a most migratory population, +ever on the move, and only needing to learn the use of certain luxuries +to be constantly in demand of them. + +With a good harvest, however, and money easy, if Lord Russell could only +be commonly civil to the Continental Cabinets, all would go well yet. +The bounties of Providence would be diffused over the earth--food would +be cheap, taxation reduced, labour plenty, and “then, sir, these worthy +people shall have their line, if I die for it.” + +I find it very hard to believe in Borneo’s love or Othello’s jealousy. +I cannot, let me do all that I will, accept them as real, even in their +most impassioned moments, and yet this other man holds me captive. If +I had a hundred pounds in the world, I’d put it into his scheme, and I +really feel that, in not borrowing the money to make a venture, I am +a poor-spirited creature that has not the courage to win his way to +fortune. + +And yet these fellows have no aid from dress or make-up. They are not +surrounded with all the appliances that aid a deception. They come to us +in their everyday apparel, and, mayhap, at inopportune moments, when +we are weary, or busy, or out of sorts, to talk of what we are not +interested in, and have no relish for. With their marvellous tact they +conquer apathy and overcome repugnance; they gain a hearing, and they +obtain at least time for more. There is much in what they say that +we feel no interest in; but now and then they _do_ touch a chord that +vibrates within us; and when they do so, it is like magic the instinct +with which they know it. It was that Roman camp, that lead-mine, that +trout-stream, or that paper-mill, did the thing; and the rogue saw it as +plainly as if he had a peep into our brain, and could read our thoughts +like a printed book. These then, I say, are the truly great actors, who +walk the boards of life with unwritten parts, who are the masters of our +emotions, even to the extent of taking away our money, and who demand +our trustfulness as a right not to be denied them. + +Now, what a poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly +and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is +going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed +plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive +thing that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, at the +station, in the club, on the chain-pier, or the penny steamer? Is there +any one, I ask, who will pay to see the plaster-cast when he can +behold the marble original for nothing? You say, “Are you going to the +masquerade?” and I answer, “I am at it.” _Circumspice!_ Look at the +mock royalties hunting (Louis XIV. fashion) in the deep woods of +Fontainebleau. Look at haughty lords and ladies--the haughtiest the +earth has ever seen--vying in public testimonies of homage--as we saw +a few days ago--to the very qualities that, if they mean anything, +mean the subversion of their order. Look at the wasteful abundance of +a prison dietary, and the laudable economy which half-starves the +workhouse. Look at the famished curate, with little beyond Greek roots +to support him, and see the millionaire, who can but write his name, +with a princely fortune; and do you want Webster or Buckstone to give +these “characters” more point? + +Will you take a box for the ‘Comedy of Errors,’ when you can walk +into the Chancery Court for nothing? Will you pay for ‘Much Ado about +Nothing,’ when a friendly order can admit you to the House? And as for +a ‘New Way to Pay Old Debts,’ commend me to Commissioner Goulburn in +Bankruptcy; while ‘Love’s Last Shift’ is daily performed at the Court of +Probate, under the distinguished patronage of Judge Wills. Is there any +need to puzzle one’s head over the decline of the drama, then? You +might as well ask if a moderate smoker will pay exorbitantly for dried +cabbage-leaves, when he can have prime Cubans for the trouble of taking +them! + + + + +PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. + +I do not remember ever to have read more pompons nonsense than was +talked a few days ago in Parliament on the subject of pensions for +retired colonial governors. + +On all ordinary occasions the strongest case a man can have with the +British public is to be an ill-used man--that is to say, if you be a man +of mark, or note, or station. To be ill-used, as one poor, friendless, +and ignoble, is no more than the complement of your condition. It is in +the fitness of things that pauperism, which we English have declared +to be illegal, should neither be fondled nor caressed. To be ill-used +profitably there must be something pictorial in your case; it must have +its reliefs of light as well as shade. There must be little touches, +a bright “has been,” sunny spots of a happy past Without the force +of these contrasts, there is no possibility of establishing the grand +grievance which is embodied in ill-usage. + +Now, Mr B. C. who brought on this motion was a sorry artist, and the +whole sum and substance of his case was, that as we secured the services +of eminent and able men, we ought to pay them “properly.” Why, in that +one word “properly” lay the whole question. What constitutes proper +payment? Every career in life carries with it some circumstance either +of advantage or the reverse, which either compensates for the loss of a +material benefit, or is requited by some addition of a tangible profit. +The educated man who accepts three hundred a-year in the Church is +not recompensed, or considered to be recompensed, by this miserable +pittance. It is in the respect, the influence, the power, and the +reverence that attach to his calling he is rewarded. Place a layman in +the parish beside him with that income, and mark the difference of their +stations! The same of the soldier. Why or how does seven-and-sixpence +diurnally represent one the equal of the best in any society of the +land? Simply by a conventional treaty, by which we admit that a man, +at the loss of so much hard cash, may enjoy a station which bears no +imaginable proportion to his means. + +On the other hand, there are large communities who, addressing +themselves to acquire wealth and riches, care very little for the +adventitious advantages of social state. As it is told of Theodore Hook, +at a Lord Mayor’s feast, that he laid down his knife and fork at the +fifth course, and declared “he would take the rest out in money;” so +there are scores of people who “go in” for the actual and the real. They +have no sympathy with those who “take out” their social status partly +in condition partly in cash, as is the case with the curate and the +captain. + +Almost every man, at his outset in life, makes some computation of how +much his career can pay him in money, how much in the advantages of rank +and station. The bailiff on the estate makes very often a far better +income than the village doctor; but do you believe that Æsculapius would +change places with him for all that? Is not the unbought deference +to his opinion, the respect to his acquirements, the obedience to his +counsel, something in the contract he makes with the world? Does he +not recognise, every day of his life, that he is not measured by the +dimensions of the small house he resides in, or the humble qualities +of the hack he rides, but that he has an acceptance in society totally +removed from every question of his fortune? + +In the great lottery we call life, the prizes differ in many things +besides degree. If the man of high ambition determine to strain every +nerve to attain a station of eminence and power, it may be that his +intellectual equal, fonder of ease, more disposed to tranquillity, will +settle down with a career that at the very best will only remove him a +step above poverty; and shall we dare to say that either is wrong? My +brother the Lord Chancellor is a great man, no doubt. The mace is a +splendid club, and the woolsack a most luxurious sofa; but as I walk +my village rounds of a summer’s morning, inhaling perfume of earth +and plant, following with my eye the ever-mounting lark, have I not +a lighter heart, a freer step, a less wearied head? Have I not risen +refreshed from sleep? not nightmared by the cutting sarcasms of some +noble earl on my fresh-gilt coronet, some slighting allusion to my +“newness in that place”? Depend upon it, the grand law of compensation +which we recognise throughout universal nature extends to the artificial +conditions of daily life, and regulates the action and adjusts the +inequalities of our social state. + +What is a viceroy or a colonial governor? A man of eminence and ability, +doubtless, but who is satisfied to estrange himself from home and +country, and occupy himself with cares and interests totally new and +strange to him, for some five or fifteen thousand pounds a-year, plus +a great variety of other things, which to certain minds unquestionably +represent high value--the--station, the power, the prestige of a great +position, with all its surroundings of deference and homage. Large as +his salary is, it is the least distinctive feature of his high office. +In every attribute of rank the man is a king. In his presence the wisest +and the most gifted do no more than insinuate the words of their wisdom, +and beauty retires curtsying, after a few commonplaces from his lips. +Why, through all the employments of life, who ever attains to the like +of this? His presence is an honour, his notice is fame. To be his guest +is a distinction for a day; to be his host is to be illustrious for a +lifetime. Are these things nothing? Ask the noble earl as he sits in his +howdah; ask my lord marquis as he rides forth with a glittering staff. + +Did any one, even Mr B. C. himself, ever imagine that Mr Macready +ought to be pensioned after he had played Cardinal Wolsey? Was it +ever proposed, even in Parliament, that Mr Kean should have a retiring +allowance when he had taken off his robes as Henry IV.? These eminent +men were, however, just as real, just as actual, during their brief hour +on the stage, as His Excellency the Viceroy or the “Lord High.” They +were there under a precisely similar compact. They had to represent a +state which had no permanence, and a power that had no stability. They +were to utter words which would be ridiculous from their lips to-morrow, +and to assume a port and bearing that must be abandoned when they +retired to change their clothes. + +It is one of my very oldest memories as a boy that I dined in company +with Charles Kemble. There was a good deal of talking, and a fair share +of wine-drinking. In the course of the former came the question of the +French Revolution of ‘30, and the conduct of the French King on that +occasion. Kemble took no part in the discussion; he listened, or seemed +to listen, filled his glass and emptied it, but never spoke. At last, +when each speaker appeared to have said his say, and the subject +approached exhaustion, the great actor, with the solemnity of a judge in +a charge, and with a grand resonance of voice, said: “I’ll tell you how +it is, sirs; Charles X. has forfeited a--a--a right good engagement!” + And that was exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are +now taking, of kings and rulers--and let us profit by it. The colonial +king has his “engagement;” it is defined exactly like the actor’s. He is +to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour +in the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not +always, of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes +seriously in him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some +impassioned moment or other like that in which I once knew Othello so +far carried away that he flung Iago into the orchestra. + +Pension Carlisle, pension Storks, if you will; but be just as well as +generous, and take care that you provide for Paul Bedford and Buckstone. + +In Archbishop Whately’s ‘Historic Doubts,’ we find that the existence +of the first emperor can be disproven by the very train of argument +employed to deny the apostles. Let me suggest the converse of this mode +of reasoning, and ask, Is there a word you can say for the Viceroy +you cannot equally say for the actor? Have you an argument for him who +governs St Helena that will not equally apply to him who struts his hour +at the Haymarket? + +I perceive that the writer of a letter to the ‘Times’ advocates the +claims of the ex-Governors, on the plausible plea that it is exactly the +very men who best represent the dignity of the station--best reflect the +splendour of the Sovereign--who come back poor and penniless from the +high office: while the penurious Governor, who has given dissatisfaction +everywhere, made the colony half rebellious by his narrow economies, +and degraded his station by contemptible savings, comes back wealthy and +affluent--self-pensioned, in fact, and independent. + +To meet this end, the writer suggests that the Crown, as advised +thereon, should have a discretionary power of rewarding the well-doer +and refusing the claim of the unmeriting, which would distinctly +separate the case of the worthy servant of the Sovereign from that of +him who only employed his office to enrich himself. + +There is a certain shallow--it is a very shallow--plausibility about +this that attracts at first sight; and there would unquestionably be +some force in it, if dinner-giving and hospitalities generally were the +first requisites of a colonial ruler; but I cannot admit this. I cannot +believe that the man who administers India or Canada, or even Jamaica +or Barbadoes, is only an expatriated Lord Mayor. I will not willingly +consent to accept it as qualification for a high trust that a man has +a good cook and an admirable cellar, and an ostentatious tendency to +display the merits of both. Mind, I am no ascetic who say this: I like +good dinners; I like occasionally--only occasionally though--very good +dinners. I feel with a clever countryman who said he liked being asked +out to dine, “it was flattering, and it was nourishing;” but with all +this I should never think of “elevating my host” to the dignity of high +statesmanship on the mere plea of his hospitality. + +We have had some able men in our dependencies who were not in the least +given to social enjoyments, who neither understood them for themselves +nor thought of them for others--Sir Charles Napier, for instance. And +who, let me ask, would have lost the services of such a man to the +State, because he had not the tastes of a Sir William Curtis, nor could +add a “Cubitt” to his stature? + +All discretionary powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and +pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and +complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man. +Not to say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a +Government in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering +a premium for profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial +fellow-subjects the very habits and tastes which are the bane and +destruction of young communities. + +Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the +ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the +509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland +had really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his +administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one +undeniable test of an ex-Governor’s due claim to a pension, since on the +question of a man’s hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There +are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours’ bordeaux. I +repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in +a police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, “Drunk +and Disorderly,” so should any commission on pensions accept as valid +grounds for a pension, “Insolvent and a Bankrupt.” + +To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply +nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day +has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not +invited him to breakfast to-morrow. + + + + +A GRUMBLE. + +I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of +course--I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in the +same position to enjoy it as I was--years ago. I am delicate about the +figures, for Mrs O’D. occasionally reads these sketches, and might feel +a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat--I wonder is +life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance with it? My +impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all the same +elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young people, and +witty people, and, better, there are beautiful people, in abundance. +There are great houses as of yore, maintained, perhaps, with even more +than bygone splendour: the horses are as good--the dogs as good--the +trout-streams as well stocked--the grouse as abundant--foreign travel is +more easy--all travel is more facile--there are more books and more +illustrated newspapers; and yet, with all these advantages--very +tangible advantages too--I do not think the present occupants make the +house as pleasant as their fathers did, and for the very simple reason, +that they never try. + +Indifferentism is the tone of the day. No one must be eager, pleased, +displeased, interested, or anxious about anything. Life is to be treated +as a tiresome sort of thing, but which is far too much beneath one to +be thought of seriously--a wearisome performance, which good manners +require you should sit out, though nothing obliges you to applaud or +even approve of it. This is the theory, and we have been most successful +in reducing it to practice. We are immensely bored, and we take good +care so shall be our neighbour. Just as we have voted that there is +nothing new, nothing strange, nothing amusing, we defy any one to differ +with us, on pain of pronouncing him vulgar. North American Indians are +not more case-hardened against any show of suffering under torture than +are our well-bred people against any manifestation of showing pleasure +in anything. “It wasn’t bad,” is about the highest expression of our +praise; and I doubt if we would accord more to heaven--if we got there. +The grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of +amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor +is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He +would admit that “the Governor”--meaning his father--was surprised; he +would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As +the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the very +expression of the features. They are intensely like each other. We are +told that a shepherd will know the actual faces of all the sheep in his +flock, distinguishing each from each at a glance. I am curious to know +if the Bishop of London knows even the few lost sheep that browse about +Rotten Eow of an afternoon, and who are so familiar to us in Leech’s +sketches. There they are--whiskered, bearded, and bored; fine-looking +animals in their way, but just as much living creatures in ‘Punch’ +as they are yonder. It is said that they only want the stimulus of a +necessity, something of daring to tempt, or something of difficulty to +provoke them, to be just as bold and energetic as ever their fathers +were. I don’t deny it. I am only complaining of the system which makes +sheep of them, reduces life to a dreary table-land, making the stupid +fellows the standard, and coming down to their level for the sake of +uniformity. Formerly they who had more wit, more smartness, more worldly +knowledge than their neighbours, enjoyed a certain pre-eminence; the +flash of their agreeability lighted up the group they talked in, and +they were valued and sought after. Now the very homage rendered, even in +this small way, was at least a testimony that superiority was recognised +and its claims admitted. What is the case now? Apathy is excellence, +and the nearest approach to insensibility is the greatest eminence +attainable. + +In the Regency, when George IV. was Prince, the clever talkers certainly +abounded; and men talk well or ill exactly as there is a demand for +the article. The wittiest conversationalist that ever existed would be +powerless in a circle of these modern “Unsurprised ones.” Their vacant +self-possession would put down all the Grattans and Currans and Jeffreys +and Sydney Smiths in the world. I defy the most brilliant, the readiest, +the most genial of talkers to vivify the mass of inert dulness he will +find now at every dinner and in every drawing-room. + +The code of modern manners is to make ease the first of all objects; +and, in order that the stupidest man may be at his ease, the ablest is +to be sacrificed. He who could bring vast stores of agreeability to +the common stock must not show his wares, because there are a store of +incapables who have nothing for the market. + +They have a saying in Donegal, that “the water is so strong it requires +two whiskies;” but I would ask what amount of “spirits” would enliven +this dreariness; what infusion of pleasantry would make Brown and Jones +endurable when multiplied by what algebraists call an _x_--an unknown +quantity--of other Browns and Joneses? + +We are constantly calling attention to the fact of the influence exerted +over morals and manners in France by the prevailing tone of the lighter +literature, and we mark the increasing licentiousness that has followed +such works as those of Eugene Sue and the younger Dumas. Let us not +forget to look at home, and see if, in the days when the Waverleys +constituted almost all our lighter reading, the tone of society was not +higher, the spirit more heroic, the current of thought and expression +purer, than in these realistic days, when we turn for amusement to +descriptions of every quaint vulgarity that makes up the life of the +boarding-house or the strolling theatre. + +The glorious heroism of Scott’s novels was a fine stream to turn +into the turbid river of our worldliness and money-seeking. It was +of incalculable benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble +devotion, high-hearted courage, and unsullied purity. + +I can remember the time when, as freshmen in our first year, we went +about talking to each other of ‘Ivanhoe’ and ‘Kenilworth;’ and I can +remember, too, when the glorious spirit of those novels had so possessed +us, that our romance elevated and warmed us to an unconscious imitation +of the noble thoughts and deeds we had been reading. + +Smile if you like at our boyish enthusiasm, it was better than the +mocking spirit engendered by all this realism, or the insensate craving +after stimulus taught by sensation novels. + +Now, I am not old enough to remember the great talkers of the time when +George III. was King, or those who made Carlton House famous; but I +belonged to a generation where these men were remembered, and where it +was common enough to hear stories of their Attic nights, those _noctes +cænæque deorum_ which really in brilliancy must have far transcended +anything that Europe could boast of conversational power. The youth +of the time I speak of were full of these traditions. “If I am not the +rose, I grew near one,” was no foolish boast; and certainly there was +both in the tone of conversation and the temper of society a sentiment +that showed how the great men had influenced their age, and how, even +after their sun had gone down, a warm tint remained to remind the world +of the glorious splendour that had departed. + +Being an Irishman, it is to Ireland I must go for my illustration, and +it is my pride to remember that I have seen some of those who were, +in an age of no common convivial excellence, amongst the first and the +greatest. They are gone, and I may speak of them by name--Lord +Plunkett, the Chief-Justice Bushe, Mr Casey, Sir Philip Crampton, Barré +Beresford--I need not go on. I have but to recall the leading men at the +bar, to make up a list of the most brilliant talkers that ever delighted +society. Nor was the soil exhausted with these; there came, so to say, a +second crop--a younger order of men--less versed in affairs, it is true, +less imbued with that vigorous conviviality that prevailed in their +fathers’ days--but of these I must not speak, for they have now grown up +to great dignities and stations, they have risen to eminence and honour +and repute, and might possibly be ashamed if it were known that they +were once so agreeable. Let me, however, record one who is no more, +but who possessed the charm of companionship to a degree I never knew +equalled in all my varied experiences of life,--one who could bring the +stores of a well-stocked mind, rich in scholarship, to bear upon any +passing incident, blended with the fascination of a manner that was +irresistible. Highly imaginative, and with a power of expression that +was positively marvellous, he gave to ordinary conversation an elevation +that actually conferred honour on those who were associated with it; +and high above all these gifts and graces, a noble nature, generous, +hopeful, and confiding. With an intellect that challenged any rivalry, +he had, in all that touched worldly matters, the simplicity of a child. +To my countrymen it is needless I should tell of whom I speak; to +others, I say his name was Mortimer O’Sullivan. The mellow cadence of +his winning voice, the beam of his honest eye, the generous smile that +never knew scorn, are all before me as I write, and I will write no +more. + + + + +OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. + +There is a story current of a certain very eminent French naturalist, +who is so profoundly impressed by the truth of the Darwinian theory, +that he never passes the cage where the larger apes are confined in +the Jardin des Plantes without taking off his hat, making a profound +obeisance, and wishing them a _bon jour_. + +This recognition is touching and graceful. The homage of the witches to +him who should be king hereafter, had in it a sort of mockery that made +it horrible; but here we have an act of generous courtesy, based alike +on the highest discoveries of science and the rules of the truest +good-breeding. + +The learned professor, with all the instincts of great acquirements +and much self-knowledge united, admits them at once to equality and +fraternity--the liberty, perhaps, they will have to wait some time +for; but in that they are no worse off than some millions of their +fellow-countrymen. + +One might speculate long--I don’t know exactly how profitably--on the +sense of gratitude these creatures must feel for this touching kindness, +how they must long for the good man’s visit, how they must wonder by +what steps he arrived at this astonishing knowledge, how surprised they +must feel that he does not make more converts; and, last of all, what +pains they must take to exhibit in their outward bearing and behaviour +that they are not unworthy of the high consideration he bestows on them! +Before him no monkey-tricks, no apish indecorums--none even of those +passing levities which young gorillas will indulge in just like other +youths. No; all must be staid, orderly, and respectful--heads held well +up--hands at rest--tails nowhere; in fact, a port and bearing that would +defy the most scrutinising observer to say that they were less eligible +company than that he had just quitted at the café. + +I own I have not seen them during the moment of the Professor’s passage. +I am unable to state authentically whether all this be as I surmise, but +I have a strong impression it must be. Indeed, reflecting on the habits +and modes of the species, I should be rather disposed to believe +them given to an exuberant show of gratitude than to anything like +indifference, and expect to witness demonstrations of delight more +natural possibly than graceful. + +Now, I have not the most remote intention of impugning the Professor’s +honesty. I give him credit--full credit--for high purpose, and for high +courage. “These poor brothers of ours,” says he, “have tails, it is +true, and they have not the hypocampus major; but let me ask you, +Monsieur le Duc, or you, Monseigneur the Archbishop, will you dare to +affirm on oath that you yourself are endowed with a hypocampus major +or minor? Are you prepared to stand forward and declare that the +convolutions of your brain are of the regulation standard--that the +medullary part is not disproportioned to the cineritious--that your falx +is not thicker or thinner than it ought--and that your optic thalami are +not too prominent? And if you are not ready to do this, what avails all +your assumption of superiority? In these--they are not many--lie the +alleged differences between you and your caged cousins yonder.” Thus +speaks, or might speak, the Professor; and, I repeat, I respect +his candour; but still I would venture to submit one small, perhaps +ungenerous doubt, and ask, Would he, acting on the noble instincts that +move him, vote these creatures an immediate and entire emancipation, or +would he not rather wait a while--a few years, say--till the habit +of sitting on chairs had worn off some of the tail, and a greater +familiarity with society suggested not to store up their dinner in their +jaws? Would he like to see them at once take their places in public +life, become public functionaries, and ministers, and grand cordons? + +Would he not rather, with that philosophy his country eminently teaches, +say, “I will do the pity and the compassion. To me be the sympathetic +part of a graceful sorrow. To posterity I bequeath the recognition of +these poor captives. Let them be liberated, by all means; but let it +be when I shall be no longer here to witness it. Let others face that +glorious millennium of gorilla greatness.” + +I am afraid he would reason in this fashion; it is one thing to have an +opinion, and to have what Frenchmen call the “courage of your opinion.” + He would say, “If Nature work surely, she works slowly; her changes are +measured, regular, and progressive. With her there are no paroxysms; +all is orderly--all is gradual It took centuries of centuries to advance +these poor creatures to the point they occupy; their next stage on the +journey is perhaps countless years away. I will not attempt to forestall +what I cannot assist. I will let Time do its work. They are not +ill-treated, besides; that large creature with the yellow eyebrows +grinned at me very pleasantly this morning, and the she-ourang-outang +was whipping her infant most naturally as I came by.” + +“What a cold-blooded philanthropy is this!” cries another. “You say +these are our brothers and our kinsmen; you declare that anatomy only +can detect some small and insignificant discrepancies between us, and +that even in these there are some of whose functions we know nothing, +and others, such as the prehensile power, where the ape has the best +of it. What do you mean by keeping them there ‘cribbed, cabined, and +confined’? Is a slight frontal inclination to disqualify a person from +being a prefect? Is an additional joint in the coccyx to prevent a man +sitting on the woolsack, or an extra inch in the astragalus to interfere +with his wearing spurs? If there be minute differences between us, +intercourse will abolish them. It will be of inestimable service +to yourselves to come into contact with these fresh, fine, generous +natures, uncontaminated by the vices of an effete and worn-out +civilisation. Great as are the benefits you extend to them, they will +repay you tenfold in the advantages to yourselves. Away with your +unworthy prejudices about a ‘black pigment’ and long heels! Take them to +your hearts and your hearths. You will find them brave--ay, braver than +your own race. Their teeth are whiter and their nails longer; there is +not a relation in life in which you will dare to call yourself their +better.” + +I will go no farther, not merely because I have no liking for my +theme, but because I am pilfering. All these arguments--the very words +themselves--I have stolen from an American writer, who, in Horace +Greeley fashion, is addressing his countrymen on the subject of negro +equality. He not alone professes to show the humanity of the project, +but its policy--its even necessity. He declares to the whites, “You +want these people; without them you will sink lower and lower into that +effete degeneracy into which years of licentiousness have sunk you. +These gorillas--black men, I mean--are virtuous; they are abstemious; +they have a little smell, but no sensuality; they will make admirable +wives for your warriors; and who knows but one may be the mother of a +President as strikingly handsome as Ape Lincoln himself!” There is +no doubt much to be said for our long-heeled friends, whether with or +without a hypocampus major. I am not very certain that we compliment +them in the best taste when the handsomest thing we can say of them is, +that they are very like ourselves! It is our human mode, however, of +expressing admiration, and resembles the exclamation of the Oberland +peasant on seeing a pretty girl, “How handsome she’d be if she only had +a _goître!_” + + + + +THE RULE NISI. + +A great many sea-captains discourage the use of life-preservers and +floating-belts on board ships of war, on the simple ground that men +should not be taught to rely for their safety on anything but what +conduces to save the ship. “Let there be but one thought, one effort,” + say they, “and let that be for the common safety.” If they be +right--and I suspect they are--we have made a famous blunder by our late +legislation about divorce. Of all the crafts that ever were launched, +marriage is one from which fewest facilities of desertion should be +provided. + +Romanism makes very few mistakes in worldly matters. There is no feature +of that Church so remarkable as its deep study and thorough acquaintance +with all the moods and wants and wishes of humanity. Whatever its +demerits, one cannot but admit that no other religion ever approached +it in intimacy with the human heart in all its emotions and in all its +strivings, whether for good or evil. + +Rome declares against all breach of the marriage tie. The Church, with +a spirit of concession it knows how to carry through all its dealings, +modifies, softens, assuages, but never severs conjugalism. It makes +the tie occasionally a slip-knot, but it never cuts the string, and I +strongly suspect that it is wise in its legislation. + +For a great many years we gave the policy that amount of imitation we +are wont to accord to Romanist practices; that is, we follow them in +part--we adopt the coat, but, to show that we are not mere imitators, +we cut off one of the skirts; and if we do not make the garment more +graceful, we at least consult our dignity, and that is something. We +made divorce the privilege of men rich enough to come to Parliament for +relief; we did with the question what some one proposed we should do +with poisons--make them so costly that only wealthy men should be able +to afford the luxury of suicide. So long as men believed that divorce +was immoral, I don’t think any one complained that it should be limited +to persons in affluence. We are a lord-loving race, we English, and are +quite ready to concede that our superiors should have more vices than +ourselves, just as they have more horses and more pheasants; and we +deemed it nothing odd or strange that he, whose right it was to walk +into the House of Peers, should walk out of matrimony when it suited +him. + +Who knows?--perhaps we were flattered by the thought that great folk so +far conceded to a vulgar prejudice as to marry at all. Perhaps we hailed +their entrance into conjugalism as we are wont to do their appearance +at a circus or a public garden--a graceful acknowledgment that they +occasionally felt something like ourselves: at all events, we liked +it, and we showed we liked it by the zeal with which we read those +descriptions in newspapers of marriages in high life, and the delight +with which we talked to each other of people we never saw, nor probably +ever should see. It was not too much, therefore, to concede to them this +privilege of escape. It was very condescending of them to come to the +play at all; we had no right to insist that they should sit out the +whole performance. + +By degrees, however, what with rich cotton-lords, and cheap +cyclopaedias, and penny trains, and popular lectures, there got up a +sort of impression--it was mere impression for a long time--that great +folk had more than their share of the puddings’ plums; and agitators +began to bestir themselves. What were the privileges of the higher +classes which would sit most gracefully on their inferiors? Naturally +we bethought us of their vices. It was not always so easy to adopt my +lord’s urbanity, his unassuming dignity, his well-bred ease; but one +might reasonably aspire to be as wicked. Sabbath-breaking had long since +ceased to be the privilege of the better classes, and so men’s minds +reverted to the question of divorce. “Let us get rid of our wives!” + cried they; “who knows but the day may come when we shall kill +woodcocks?” + +Now the law, in making divorce a very costly process, had simply desired +to secure its infrequency. It was not really meant to be a rich man’s +privilege. What was sought for was to oppose as many obstacles as could +be found, to throw in as many rocks as possible into the channel, so +that only he who was intently bent on navigating the stream would ever +have the energy to clear the passage. Nobody ever dreamed of making it +an open roadstead. In point of fact, the oft-boasted equality before +the law is a myth. The penalty which a labourer could endure without +hardship might break my lord’s heart; and in the very case before us of +divorce, nothing can possibly be more variable than the estimate formed +of the divorced individuals, according to the class of society they move +in. + +What would be a levity here, would be a serious immorality there; and +a little lower down again, a mere domestic arrangement, slightly more +decorous and a shade more legal than the old system of the halter and +the public sale. It was declared, however, that this “relief”--that is +the popular phrase in such matters--should be extended to the poor +man. It was decided that the privilege to get rid of a wife was, as +Mr Gladstone says of the electoral right, the inalienable claim of a +freeman, and the only course was to lower the franchise. + +Let us own, too, we were ashamed, as we had good right to be ashamed, of +our old _crim. con._ law. Foreigners, especially Frenchmen, had rung +the changes on our coarse venality and corruption; and we had come to +perceive--it took some time, though--that moneyed damages were scarcely +the appropriate remedy for injured honour. + +Last of all, free-trade notions had turned all our heads: we were +for getting rid of all restrictions on every side; and we went about +repeating to each other those wise saws about buying in the cheapest and +selling in the dearest market, and having whatever we wanted, and doing +whatever we liked with our own. We are, there is no denying it, a nation +of shopkeepers; and the spirit of trade can be tracked through every +relation of our lives. It is commerce gives the tone to all our +dealings; and we have carried its enactments into the most sacred of all +our institutions, and imparted a “limited liability” even to marriage. + +Cheapness became the desideratum of our age, We insisted on cheap gloves +and shoes and wine and ribbons, and why not cheap divorces? Philosophers +tell us that the alternate action of the seasons is one of the purest +and most enduring of all sources of enjoyment; that perpetual summer +or spring would weary and depress; but in the ever-changing aspect +of nature, and in the stimulation which diversity excites, we find an +unfailing gratification. If, therefore, it be pleasant to be married, +it may also be agreeable to be unmarried. It takes some time, however, +before society accommodates itself to these new notions. The newly +divorced, be it man or woman, comes into the world like a patient after +the smallpox--you are not quite certain whether the period of contagion +is past, or if it be perfectly safe to go up and talk to him. In fact, +you delay doing so till some strong-minded friend or other goes boldly +forward and shakes the convalescent by the hand. Even still there will +be timid people who know perhaps that their delicacy of constitution +renders them peculiarly sensitive, and who will keep aloof after all. Of +course, these and similar prejudices will give way to time. We have +our Probate Court; and the phrase _co-respondent_ is now familiar as a +household word. + +Now, however tempting the theme, I am not going to inquire whether we +have done wisely or the reverse by this piece of legislation; whether, +by instilling certain precepts of self-control, a larger spirit of +accommodation, and a more conciliatory disposition generally, we might +have removed some of the difficulties without the heroic remedy of the +decree _nisi_; whether, in fact, it might not have been better to teach +people to swim, or even float, rather than make this great issue of +cheap life-belts. I am so practical that I rather address myself to +profit by what is, than endeavour by any change to make it better. We +live in a statistical age. We are eternally inquiring who it is wants +this, who consumes that, who goes to such a place, who is liable to this +or that malady. Classification is a passion with us; and we have bulky +volumes to teach us what sorts of people have chest affections, what are +most prone to stomachic diseases, who have ophthalmia, and who the +gout. We are also instructed as to the kind of persons most disposed to +insanity, and we have a copious list of occupations given us which +more or less incline those who profess them to derangement. Even the +Civil-Service Examiners have contributed their share to this mass of +entertaining knowledge, and shown from what parts of the kingdom bad +spellers habitually come, what counties are celebrated for cacography, +and in what districts etymology is an unknown thing. Would it not, then, +be a most interesting and instructive statistic that would give us +a tabular view of divorce, showing in what classes frailty chiefly +prevailed, with the relative sexes, and also a glimpse at the ages? +Imagine what a light the statement would throw on the morality of +classes, and what an incalculable benefit to parents in the choice of a +career for their children! For instance, no sensible father would select +a life of out-door exposure for a weak-chested son, or make a sailor of +one with an incurable sea-sickness. In the same way would he be guided +by the character of his children as to the perils certain careers would +expose them to. + +A passing glance at the lists of divorce shows us that no +“promovent”--it is a delicate title, and I like it--no promovent figures +oftener than a civil engineer. Now, how instructive to inquire why! + +What is there in embankments and earthworks and culverts that should +dispose the wife of him who makes them to infidelity? Why should a +tunnel only lead to domestic treachery? why must a cutting sever the +heart that designs it? I do not know; I cannot even guess. My ingenuity +stands stockstill at the question, and I can only re-echo, Why? + +Next amongst the “predisposed” come schoolmasters, plasterers, &c. What +unseen thread runs through the woof of these natures, apparently so +little alike? It is the boast of modern science to settle much that +once was puzzling, and reconcile to a system what formerly appeared +discordant. How I wish some great Babbage-like intellect would bestir +itself in this inquiry. + +Surely ethical questions are as well worthy of investigation as purely +physical or mechanical ones, and yet we ignore them most ignominiously. +We think no expense too great to test an Armstrong or a Whitworth gun; +we spend thousands to ascertain how far it will carry, what destructive +force it possesses, and how long it will resist explosion;--why not +appoint a commission of this nature on “conjugate;” why not ascertain, +if we can, what is the weak point in matrimony, and why are explosions +so frequent? Is the “cast” system a bad one, and must we pronounce +“welding” a failure? or, last of all, however wounding to our national +vanity, do “they understand these things better in France”? + + + + +ON CLIMBING BOYS. + +With the common fate of all things human, it is said that every career +and walk in life has some one peculiar disparagement--something that, +attaching to the duties of the station as a sort of special grievance, +serves to show that none of us, no matter how favoured, are to imagine +there can be any lot exempted from its share of troubles. Ask the +soldier, the sailor, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, or the actor, +and each will give you a friendly warning to adopt any other career than +his own. + +In most cases the _quid amarum_, the one bitter drop, is to be found in +the career itself, something that belongs to that one craft or calling; +just as the white-lead colic, for instance, is the fatal malady of +painters. There are, however, a few rare cases in which the detracting +element attaches itself to the followers and not to the profession, as +though it would seem there was a something in the daily working of that +peculiar craft which warped the minds and coerced the natures of men +to be different from what temperament and character should have made of +them. + +The two classes which most prominently exhibit what I mean are somewhat +socially separated, but they have a number of small analogies in common. +They are Sweeps and Statesmen! It would be tempting--but I resist the +temptation--to show how many points of resemblance unite them--how each +works in the dark, in a small, narrow, confined sphere, without view or +outlet; how the tendency of each is to scratch his way upwards and gain +the top, caring wonderfully little how black and dirty the process has +made him. One might even go farther, and mark how, when indolence or +weariness suggested sloth, the stimulus of a little fire underneath, +whether a few lighted straws or a Birmingham mass-meeting, was sure to +quicken progress and excite activity. + +Again, I make this statement on the faith of Lord Shaftesbury, who +pronounced it before their Lordships in the Upper House:--“It is no +uncommon thing to buy and sell them. There is a regular traffic in them; +and through the agency of certain women, not the models of their sex, +you can get any quantity of them you want.” Last of all, on the same +high authority, we are told of their perfect inutility, “since there is +nothing that they do could not be better done by a machine.” + +I resist, as I say, all temptations of this kind, and simply address +myself to the one point of similarity between them which illustrates the +theory with which I have started--and now to state this as formally as +I am able. Let me declare that in all the varied employments of life +I have never met with men who have the same dread of their possible +successors as sweeps and statesmen. The whole aim and object of each +is directed, first of all, to keep those who do their work as little +as possible, well knowing that the time will come when these small +creatures will find the space too confined for them, and set up for +themselves. + +A volume might be written on the subtle artifices adopted to keep them +“little”--the browbeatings, the insults, the crushing cruelties, the +spare diet intermixed with occasional stimulants, the irregular hours, +and the heat and confinement of the sphere they work in. Still, nature +is stronger than all these crafty contrivances. The little sweep will +grow into the big sweep, and the small under-sec. will scratch his way +up to the Cabinet I will not impose on my reader the burden of carrying +along with him this double load. I will address myself simply to one +of these careers--the Statesman’s. It is a strange but a most +unquestionable fact, that no other class of men are so ill-disposed to +those who are the most likely to succeed them--not of an Opposition, +for that would be natural enough, but of their own party, of their +own colour, of their own rearing. Let us be just: when a man has long +enjoyed place, power, and pre-eminence, dispensed honours and pensions +and patronage, it is not a small trial to discover that one of those +little creatures he has made--whose first scraper and brush he himself +paid for--I can’t get rid of the sweep out of my head--will turn +insolently on him and declare that he will no longer remain a +subordinate, but go and set up for himself. This is excessively hard, +and might try the temper of a man even without a fit of the gout. + +It is exactly what has just happened; an apprentice, called Gladstone, +having made a sort of connection in Manchester and Birmingham, a +district abounding in tall chimneys, has given warning to his master Pam +that he will not sweep any longer. He is a bold, aspiring sort of lad, +and he is not satisfied with saying--as many others have done--that he +is getting too broad-shouldered for his work; but he declares that the +chimneys for the future must be all made bigger and the flues wider, +just because he likes climbing, and doesn’t mean to abandon it. There is +no doubt of it. Manchester and Stockport and Birmingham have put this in +his head. Their great smelting-houses and steam-power factories require +big chimneys; and being an overbearing set of self-made vulgar fellows, +they say they ought to be a law to all England. You don’t want to make +cotton-twist, or broad-gauge iron; so much the worse for you. It is +the grandest object of humanity. Providence created men to manufacture +printed cottons and cheap penknives. We of Manchester understand what +our American friends call manifest destiny; we know and feel ours will +be--to rule England. Once let us only introduce big chimneys, and you’ll +see if you won’t take to spinning-jennies and mules and treddles; +and there’s that climbing boy Gladstone declares he’ll not leave the +business, but go up, no matter how dirty the flue, the day we want him. + +Some shrewd folk, who see farther into the millstone than their +neighbours, have hinted that this same boy is of a crotchety, intriguing +type, full of his own ingenuity, and enamoured of his own subtlety; +so that make the chimney how great you will, he’ll not go up it, but +scratch out another flue for himself, and come out, heaven knows where +or how. Indeed, they tell that on one occasion of an alarm of fire +in the house--caused by a pantry-boy called Russell burning some +wasterpaper instead of going up the chimney as he was ordered--this +same Will began to tell how the Greeks had no chimneys, and a mass +of antiquarian rubbish of the same kind, so that his master, losing +patience, exclaimed, “Of all plagues in the world he knew of none to +compare with these ‘climbing boys!’” + + + + +LINGUISTS + +There are two classes of people not a little thought of, and even +caressed, in society, and for whom I have ever felt a very humble +estimate--the men who play all manner of games, and the men who speak +several languages. I begin with the latter, and declare that, after +a somewhat varied experience of life, I never met a linguist that was +above a third-rate man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced +upon a really able man who had the talent for languages. + +I am well aware that it sounds something little short of a heresy to +make this declaration. It is enough to make the blood of Civil-Service +Commissioners run cold to hear it. It sounds illiberal--and, worse, +it seems illogical. Why should any intellectual development imply +deficiency? Why should an acquirement argue a defect? I answer, I don’t +know--any more than I know why sanguineous people are hot-tempered, and +leuco-phlegmatic ones are more brooding in their wrath. If--for I do not +ask to be anything higher than empirical--if I find that parsimonious +people have generally thin noses, and that the snub is associated with +the spendthrift, I never trouble myself with the demonstration, but I +hug the fact, and endeavour to apply it. + +In the same spirit, if I hear a man in a salon change from French to +German and thence diverge into Italian and Spanish, with possibly a +brief excursion into something Scandinavian or Sclav--at home in each +and all--I would no more think of associating him in my mind with +anything responsible in station or commanding in intellect, than I +should think of connecting the servant that announced me with the last +brilliant paper in the ‘Quarterly.’ + +No man with a strongly-marked identity--and no really able man ever +existed without such--can subordinate that identity so far as to put on +the foreigner; and without this he never can attain that mastery of +a foreign language that makes the linguist. To be able to repeat +conventionalities--bringing them in at the telling moment, adjusting +phrases to emergencies, as a joiner adapts the pieces of wood to his +carpentry--may be, and is, a very neat and a very dexterous performance, +but it is scarcely the exercise to which a large capacity will address +itself. Imitation must be, in one sense or other, the stronghold of the +linguist--imitation of expression, of style, of accent, of cadence, of +tone. The linguist must not merely master grammar, but he must manage +gutturals. The mimicry must go farther: in simulating expression it must +affect the sentiment. You are not merely borrowing the clothes, but you +are pretending to put on the feelings, the thoughts, the prejudices +of the wearer. Now, what man with a strong nature can merge himself so +entirely in his fictitious being as not to burst the seams and tear the +lining of a garment that only impedes the free action of his limbs, and +actually threatens the very extinction of his respiration? + +It is not merely by their greater adaptiveness that women are better +linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their +more subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which +are consequently less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual +self. And what is it that makes the men of mark or note, the cognate +signs of human algebra, but these same characteristics; not always +good, not always pleasant, not always genial, but always associated with +something that declares preeminence, and pronounces their owner to be a +“representative man”? + +When Lord Ward replied to Prince Schwartzenberg’s flippant remark on +the bad French of English diplomatists by the apology, “that we had not +enjoyed the advantage of having our capital cities so often occupied by +French troops as some of our neighbours,” he uttered not merely a smart +epigram but a great philosophical truth. It was not alone that we had +not possessed the opportunity to pick up an accent, but that we had not +subordinated our minds and habits to French modes and ways of thought, +and that the tone and temper of the French people had not been beaten +into us by the roll of a French drum. One may buy an accomplishment +too dearly. It is possible to pay too much even for a Parisian +pronunciation! Not only have I never found a linguist a man of eminence, +but I have never seen a linguist who talked well. Fluent they are, of +course, like the Stecknadel gun of the Prussians, they can fire without +cessation, but, like the same weapon, they are comparatively aimless. It +is a _feu roulant_, with plenty of noise and some smoke, but very +“few casualties” announce the success. The greatest linguist of modern +Europe, Mezzofanti, was a most inferior man. Of the countries whose +dialect he spoke to perfection, he knew nothing. An old dictionary would +have been to the full as companionable. I find it very hard not to be +personal just now, and give a list--it would be a long one--of all the +tiresome people I know, who talk four, five, some of them six modern +languages perfectly. It is only with an effort I abstain from mentioning +the names of some well-known men who are the charming people at Borne +and Vienna every winter, and each summer are the delight of Ems, of +Berlin, and of Ischl. What tyrants these fellows are, too, over the +men who have not got their gift of tongues! how they out-talk them and +overbear them! with what an insolent confidence they fall back upon +the petty superiority of their fluency, and lord it over those who are +immeasurably their masters! Just as Blondin might run along the rigging +of a three-decker, and pretend that his agility entitled him to command +a squadron! + +Nothing, besides, is more imposing than the mock eloquence of good +French. The language in itself is so adaptive, it is so felicitous, +it abounds in such innumerable pleasant little analogies, such nice +conceits and suggestive drolleries, that he who acquires these has at +will a whole armoury of attack and defence. It actually requires years +of habit to accustom us to a display that we come at last to discover +implies no brilliancy whatever in him who exhibits, though it argues +immense resources in the treasury from which he derives this wealth. + +I have known scores of delightful talkers--Frenchmen--who had no other +charm than what their language lent them. They were neither profound, +nor cultivated, nor witty--some were not even shrewd or acute; but all +were pleasant--pleasant in the use of a conversational medium, of +which the world has not the equal--a language that has its set form of +expression for every social eventuality, and that hits to a nicety every +contingency of the “salon;” for it is no more the language of natural +people than the essence of the perfumer’s shop is the odour of a field +flower. It is pre-eminently the medium of people who talk with tall +glasses before them, and an incense of truffles around them, and +well-dressed women--clever and witty, and not over-scrupulous in their +opinions--for their company. Then, French is unapproachable; English +would be totally unsuited to the occasion, and German even more so. +There is a flavour of sauer kraut about that unhappy tongue that would +vulgarise a Queen if she talked it. + +To attain, therefore, the turns and tricks of this language--for it is +a Chinese puzzle in its involvements--what a life must a man have +led! What “terms” he must have “put in” at cafés and restaurants! +What seasons at small theatres--tripots and worse! What nights at +bals-masqués, Chateaux des Fleurs, and Cadrans rouges et bleus! What +doubtful company he must have often kept! What company a little more +than doubtful occasionally! What iniquities of French romance must he +have read, with all the cardinal virtues arrayed as the evil destinies +of humanity, and every wickedness paraded as that natural expansion of +the heart which alone raises man above the condition of the brute! I +ask, if proficiency must imply profligacy, would you not rather find a +man break down in his verbs than in his virtue? Would you not prefer +a little inaccuracy in his declensions to a total forgetfulness of the +decalogue? And, lastly of all, what man of real eminence could have +masqueraded--for it is masquerading--for years in this motley, and come +out, after all, with even a rag of his identity? + +Many people would scruple to play at cards with a stranger whose mode of +dealing and general manipulation of the pack bespoke daily familiarity +with the play-table. They would infer that he was a regular and +professional gambler. In the very same way, and for the selfsame reason, +would I carefully avoid any close intimacy with the Englishman of fluent +French, well knowing he could not have graduated in that perfection save +at a certain price. But it is not at the moral aspect of the question I +desire particularly to look. I assert--and I repeat my assertion--that +these talkers of many tongues are poor creatures. There is no initiative +in them--they suggest nothing--they are vendors of second-hand wares, +and are not always even good selectors of what they sell. It is only +in narrative that they are at all endurable. They can _raconter_, +certainly; and so long as they go from salon to salon repeating in +set phrase some little misadventure or accident of the day, they are +amusing; but this is not conversation, and they do not converse. + +“Every time a man acquires a new language, is he a new man?” is supposed +to have been a saying of Charles V.--a sentiment that, if he uttered it, +means more of sarcasm than of praise; for it is the very putting off +a man’s identity that establishes his weakness. All real force of +character excludes dualism. Every eminent, every able man has a certain +integrity in his nature that rejects this plasticity. + +It is a very common habit, particularly with newspaper writers, to +ascribe skill in languages, and occasionally in games, to distinguished +people. It was but the other day we were told that Garibaldi spoke ten +languages fluently. Now Garibaldi is not really master of two. He +speaks French tolerably; and his native language is not Italian, but +a patois-Genoese. Cavour was called a linguist with almost as little +truth; but people repeat the story, just as they repeat that Napoleon I. +was a great chess-player. If his statecraft and his strategy had been on +a par with his chess, we should never have heard of Tilsit or Wagram. + +Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, and George Canning, each of +whom administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, +were not linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence +on record that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not +want to decry the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that +linguists--and through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists--are +for the most part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than +by the gift of tongues; and I want to protest against the undue +pre-eminence accorded to the possessors of a small accomplishment, and +the readiness with which the world, especially the world of society, +awards homage to an acquirement in which a boarding-school Miss can +surpass Lord Brougham. I mean to say a word or two about those who have +skill in games; but as they are of a higher order of intelligence, I’ll +wait till I have got “fresh wind” ere I treat of _them_. + + + + +THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. + +As there are few better tests of the general health of an individual +than in the things he imagines to be injurious to him, so there is +no surer evidence of the delicate condition of a State than in the +character of those who are assumed to be dangerous to it. Now, after all +that has been said of Rome and the corruptions of Roman government, I do +not know anything so decidedly damnatory as the fact, to which allusion +was lately made in Parliament, that the Papal Government had ordered Mr +Home, the spiritualist, to quit the city and the States of his Holiness, +and not to return to them. + +In what condition, I would ask, must a country be when such a man is +regarded as dangerous? and in what aspect of his character does the +danger consist? + +Do we want ghosts or spirits to reveal to us any more of the iniquities +of that State than we already know? Is there a detail of its corrupt +administration that the press of Europe has not spread broadcast over +the world? What could Mr Home and all his spirits tell us of peculation, +theft, subornation, bigotry, and oppression, that the least observant +traveller has not brought home with him? + +And then, as to the man himself, how puerile it is to give him this +importance! The solitary bit of cleverness about him is his statement +that he has no control whatever over the spirits that attend him. Asking +him not to summon them, is pretty like asking Mr Windham not to send for +his creditors. They come pretty much as they like, and probably their +visits are about equally profitable. + +In this respect Home belongs to a very low order of his art. When Bosco +promises to make a bouquet out of a mouse-trap, or Houdin engages to +concoct a batter-pudding in your hat, each keeps his word. There is no +subterfuge about the temper the spirits may happen to be in, or of their +willingness or unwillingness to present themselves. The thing is done, +and we see it--or we think we see it, which comes much to the same. + +With this provision of escape Mr Home secures himself against all +failure. Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more +discriminating and observant character than he liked or anticipated, +and the exhibition in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to +do was, to aver that the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown +on _his_ part Homer was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon +was indisposed to meet company, and there was the end of it. You were +invited to meet celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they would +present themselves. + +On the other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered--when +the séance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and +hysterical as they ought to be--when the nervous lady sat beside the +timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia--the +artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that +astounded even himself. What limit is there, besides, to contagional +sympathy? Look at the crowded theatre, with its many-minded spectators, +and see how one impulse, communicated occasionally by a hireling, will +set the whole mass in a ferment of enthusiastic delight. Mark, too, how +the smile, that plays like an eddy on a lake, deepens into a laugh, and +is caught up by another and another, till the whole storm breaks out in +a hearty ocean of merriment. These, if you like, are spirits; but the +great masters of them are not men like Mr Home--they have ever been, +and still are, of a very different order. Shakespeare and Molière and +Cervantes knew something of the mode to summon these imps, and could +make them come at their bidding besides. + +Was it--to come back to what I started with--was it in any spirit of +rivalry that the Papal Government drove Mr Home out of Home? Was it +that, assuming to have a monopoly in the wares he dealt in, they +would not stand a contraband trade? If so, their ground is at least +defensible; for what chance of attraction would there be for the winking +Virgin in competition with him who could “make a young lady ascend to +the ceiling, and come slowly down like a parachute!”--a spiritual fact +I have heard from witnesses who really, so far as character went, might +challenge any incredulity. + +If the Cardinals were jealous of the Conjuror, the thing is intelligible +enough, and one must feel a certain degree of sympathy with the +old-established firm that had spent such enormous sums, and made such +stupendous preparations, when a pretender like this could come into +competition with them, without any other properties than could be +carried conveniently about him. + +But let us be practical The Pope’s Government demanded of Mr Home that +he should have no dealings with the Evil One during his stay at Rome. +Now, I ask, what should we say of the efficacy of our police system +if we were to hear that the Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard lived in +nightly terror of the pickpockets who frequented that quarter, and +came to Parliament with a petition to accord him some greater +security against their depredations? Would not the natural reply be an +exclamation of astonishment that he who could summon to his aid every +alphabetical blue-coat that ever handled a truncheon, should deem any +increased security necessary to his peace? And so, would I ask, of what +avail these crowds of cardinals--these regiments of monsignori--these +battalions of bishops, Arch and simple?--of what use all the incense +and these chanted litanies, these eternal processions, and these saintly +shin-bones borne in costly array--if one poor mortal, supposed to live +on visiting terms with the Evil One, can strike such terror into the +whole army led on by Infallibility? + +If I had been possessed of any peculiar dread of coming unexpectedly +on the Devil--as the old ladies of New York used to feel long ago +about suddenly meeting with the British army--I should certainly have +comforted myself by the thought that I could always go and sit down on +the steps of the Vatican. It would immediately have occurred to me, that +as Holyrood offers its sanctuary against the sheriff, the Quirinal would +be the sure retreat against Old Nick; and I have even pictured to myself +the rage of his disappointed malice as he saw me sheltering safely +beneath a protection he dared not invade. And now I am told to +relinquish all the blessed enjoyment of this immunity; that the Pope and +the Cardinals and Antonelli himself are not a whit better off than the +rest of us; that if Mr Home gets into Rome, there is nothing to prevent +his having the Devil at his tea-parties. What an ignoble confession +is this! Who will step forward any longer and contend that this costly +system is to be maintained, and all these saintly intercessors to be +kept on the most expensive of all pension-lists, if a poor creature like +Home can overthrow it all? + +Can any one conceive such a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet +and purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing +before Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents to cross +the Tiber? + +Why--I speak, of course, in the ignorance of a laic--but, I ask, why not +fumigate him and cleanse him? When I saw him last, the process would not +have been so supererogatory. Why not exorcise and defy him? Why not say, +Come, and bring your friend if you dare; you shall see how we will treat +you. Only try it It is what we have been asking for nigh two thousand +years. Let the great culprit step forward and plead to his indictment. + +I can fancy the Pope saying this--I can picture to myself the proud +attitude of the Pontiff declaring, “I have had enough of these small +devilries, like Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel--I am sick of Mazzini +and his petty followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at once; +if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to a compromise.” + This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that +he should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not +surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and +actually feared the debating powers of “Mr Potter of the Strikes.” + + + + +GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. + +Nothing shows what a practical people we are more than our establishment +of insurances against railroad accidents. The spirit of commercial +enterprise, by which a man charters himself for a railroad voyage with +an insured cargo of his bones, ligaments, cartilage, and adipose tissue, +abundantly proves that we are nature’s own traders and shopkeepers. + +Any ordinary people less imbued with Liverpool and Manchester notions +would have bestirred themselves how to prevent, or at least lessen, +the number of those casualties. They would have set to work to see what +provisions could be adopted to give greater security to travel. We, on +the contrary are too business-like to waste time on this inquiry. We are +convinced that, let us build ships ever so strong, there will still +be shipwrecks. So we feel assured that a certain number of railway +accidents, as they are called, will continue to occur--be as broad gauge +as you will! We accept the situation, therefore, as the French say, and +insure; that is to say, we book a bet at very long odds--say, three to a +thousand--that we shall be rolled up, cut in two, flattened into a thin +sheeting, and ground into an impalpable powder, between Croydon +and Brighton. If we arrive safe, the assurance office pockets a few +shillings; if we win our wager, our executor receives a thousand pounds. + +It is about the grimmest kind of gambling ever man heard of; and yet +we see folk of the most unquestionable propriety--dignitaries of the +Church, judges, civil and uncivil servants of the Crown, and scores of +others, whom nothing would tempt into the Cursaal at Ems or Baden, as +coolly as possible playing this terrific game, and backing themselves +heavily for a dorsal paralysis, a depressed fracture of the cranium, or +at least a compound dislocation of the hip-joint. + +Now, if the Protestant Church entertained what the Romanists call +cases of conscience, I should like greatly to ask, Is this right? Is it +justifiable to make a contingent profit out of your cerebral vertebrae +or your popliteal space? + +We have long been derided and scoffed at for making connubialism +marketable, and putting a price on a wife’s infidelity, but it strikes +me this is something worse; for what, after all, is a rib--a false rib, +too--compared with the whole bony skeleton? + +“Allah is Allah,” said the Turkish admiral to Lady Hester Stanhope, “but +I have got two anchors astern,” showing that, with all his fatalism, he +did not despise what are technically called human means. So the reverend +Archdeacon, going down for his sea-baths, might say, “I’m not quite sure +they’ll carry me safely, but it shall not be all misfortune--I’ll take +out some of it in money.” + +The system, however, has its difficulties; for though it is a round +game, the stakes are apportioned with reference to the rank and +condition of the winner--as, for instance, the Solicitor-General’s +collarbone is worth a shoemaker’s whole body, and a Judge’s patella is +of more value than a dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This +is a tremendous pull against the company, who not only give long, but +actually incalculable odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can +be crumpled up for two hundred pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in +the coupe cannot be even concussed under a thousand; while if the noble +Duke in the express carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may be +positively astounding. + +This I certainly call hard--very hard. When you book a bet at Newmarket +you never have to consider the rank of your opponent, save as regards +his solvency. He may be a peer--he is very probably a publican--it is +perfectly immaterial to you; but not so here. The company is positively +staking against the incommensurable. They have no means of knowing +whether that large broad-shouldered man yonder is or is not a royal +duke; and when the telegraph announces a collision, it may chance that +the news has declared what will send every shareholder into bankruptcy, +or only graze them without hurting anybody. + +We all know how a number of what are technically termed serious people +went to Exeter Hall to listen to the music of the ‘Traviata,’ what no +possible temptation would have induced them to hear within the walls +of a theatre. I will not question the propriety of a matter only to +be settled by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the +words--for the airs were sung--were the same, the hearers were not +improbably in the enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though +they had gone for it to the Queen’s Theatre. Now, may not these railway +insurances be something of the same kind? May it not be a means by which +deans and canons and other broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little +gambling without “going in” for Blind Hooky or Roulette? Regard for +decorum would prevent their sojourning at Homburg or Wiesbaden. They +could not, of course, be seen “punting” at the play-table at Ems; but +here is a legitimate game which all may join in, and where, certainly, +the anxiety that is said to impart the chief ecstasy to the gamester’s +passion rises to the very highest It is heads and tails for a smashing +stake, and ought to interest the most sluggish of mortals. + +What a useful addition, then, would it be for one’s Bradshaw to have a +tabular view of the “odds” on the different lines, so that a speculative +individual, desiring to provide for his family, might know where to +address himself with best chance of an accident! One can imagine an +assurance company puffing its unparalleled advantages and unrivalled +opportunity, when four excursion trains were to start at five minutes’ +intervals, and the prospect of a smash was little short of a certainty. +“Great attraction! the late rains have injured the chief portion of the +line, so that a disaster is confidently looked for every hour. Make your +game, gentlemen--make your game; nothing received after the bell rings.” + + + + +THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. + +Anything more absurd than the late debate in the House on the best means +of suppressing intemperance it is very hard to imagine. First of all, +in the van, came the grievance to be redressed; and we had a statistical +statement of all the gallons of strong drink consumed--all the moneys +diverted from the legitimate uses of the family--all the debauchees +who rolled drunk through our streets, and all the offences directly +originating in this degrading vice. Now, what conceivable order of mind +could prompt a man to engage in such a laborious research? Who either +doubts the enormity of drunkenness or its frequency? It is a theme that +we hear of incessantly. The pulpit rings with it, the press proclaims +it, the judges declare it in all their charges, and a special class of +lecturers have converted it into a profession. None denied the existence +of the disease; what we craved was the cure. Some discrepancy of opinion +prevailed as to whether the vice was on the increase or the decrease. +Statistics were given, and, of course, statistics supported each +assertion. This, however, was a mere skirmish--the grand battle was, How +was drunkenness to be put down? + +Mr Lawson’s plan was: If four-fifths of the ratepayers of any district +were agreed that no spirituous liquors should be sold there, that such +should become a law, and no licence for their sale should be issued. The +mover of this proposal, curiously enough, called this “bringing public +opinion to bear on the question.” What muddle of intelligence could +imagine this to be an exercise of public opinion I cannot imagine. +Such, however, is the plan. Drunkenness is to be repressed by making +it impossible. Did it never occur to the honourable gentleman, that all +legislative enactments whatever work not by enforcing what is good, but +by punishing what is evil? No law that ever was made would render people +honest and true to their engagements; but we arrive at a result not very +dissimilar by making dishonesty penal. + +The Decalogue declares: “Thou shalt not commit a murder.” Human law +pronounces what will come of it if you do. It is, doubtless, very +imperfect legislation, but there is no help for it. We accept such +cases, however, as the best defences we can find for our social +condition, never for a moment presuming to think that we are rendering a +vice impossible by attaching to it a penalty. + +Mr Lawson, however, says, There shall be no drunkenness, because there +shall be no liquor. Why not extend the principle--for it is a great +discovery--and declare that, wherever four-fifths of the ratepayers of +a town or borough are of opinion that ingratitude is a great offence to +morals and a stain to human nature, in that district where they reside +there shall be no benefits conferred, nor any act of kindly aid or +assistance rendered by one man to his neighbour? I have no doubt that, +by such legislation, you would put down ingratitude. We use acts in the +moral world pretty much as in the physical; and it is entirely by the +impossibility of committing the offence that this gentleman proposes +to prevent its occurrence. But, in the name of common sense, why do we +inveigh against monasteries and nunneries?--why are we so severe on a +system that substitutes restraint for reason, and instead of correction +supplies coercion? Surely this plan is based on exactly the same +principle. Would it, I ask, cure a man of lying--I mean the vice, not +the practice--to place him in a community where no party was permitted +to talk? + +The example of the higher classes was somewhat ostentatiously paraded in +the debate, and members vied with each other in declaring how often +they dined out without meeting a drunkard in the company. This is very +gratifying and reassurring; but I am not aware that anybody ascribed +the happy change to the paucity of the decanters, and the difficulty of +getting the bottle; or whether it was that four-fifths of the party +had declared an embargo on the sherry, and realised the old proverb by +elevating necessity to the rank of virtue. + +Let me ask, who ever imagined that the best way to render a soldier +brave in battle was to take care that he never saw an enemy, and only +frequented the society of Quakers? And yet this is precisely what +Mr Lawson suggests. If his system be true, what becomes of all moral +discipline and all self-restraint? It is not through my own convictions +that I am sober; it is through no sense of the degradation that pertains +to drunkenness, and the loss of social estimation that follows it, that +I am temperate. It is because four-fifths of the ratepayers declare that +I shall have no drink nearer than the next parish; and this reminds of +another weak point in the plan. + +The Americans, who understand something of the evils of drink, on the +principle that made Doctor Panloss a good man, because he knew what +wickedness was, lately passed a law in Congress forbidding the use of +fermented liquors on board all the ships of war. It was one of those +sweeping pieces of legislation that men enact when driven to do +something, they know not exactly what, by the enormity of some great +abuse. Now, I have taken considerable pains to inquire how the plan +operates, and what success has waited on it. From every officer that I +have questioned I have received the same exact testimony: so long as the +ships are at sea the men only grumble at the privation; but once they +touch port, and boats’ crews are permitted to go ashore, drunkenness +breaks out with tenfold violence. For a while all real discipline is at +an end; parties are despatched to bring back defaulters, who themselves +get reeling drunk; petty officers are insulted, and scenes of violence +enacted that give the unhappy locality where they have landed the +aspect of a town taken by assault and given up to pillage. I am not now +describing altogether from hearsay; I have witnessed something of what I +speak. + +As drunkenness, when the ship was at sea, was the rarest of all events, +and the good conduct of the men when on shore was the great object to +be obtained, this system may be, so far as the navy is concerned, +pronounced a decided failure. Whatever may be said about the policy of +sowing a man’s wild oats, nobody, so far as I know, ever hinted that the +crop should be perennial. + +Legislation can no more make men temperate than it can make them cleanly +or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would +make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a +crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to +this well-intentioned gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is +unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How +is it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the +great essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle +man now could no more be found than the Plesiosaurus. He belongs to a +past totally and essentially irrevocable. + +And by what has this happy change been effected? Surely not by +withdrawing temptation. Not only have we an infinitely wider choice in +fluids than our forefathers, but they are served and ministered with +appliances far more tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the +higher tone of society the revolution is owing. Men saw that drunkenness +was disgraceful: it rendered society disorderly and riotous; it +interfered with all real conversational pleasure; it led to unmannerly +excesses, and to quarrels. A higher cultivation repudiated all these +things; and even they who, so to say, “liked their wine” too well, were +slow to disparage themselves by an indulgence which good taste declared +to be ungentlemanlike. + +Is it completely impossible to introduce some such sentiment as this +into other orders of society? We see it certainly in some foreign +countries--why not in our own? Radical orators are incessantly telling +us of the mental powers and the intellectual cultivation of the +working-classes, and I am well-disposed to believe there is much truth +in what they say. Why not then adapt, to men so highly civilised, some +of those sentiments that sway the classes more favoured of fortune? The +French artisan would deem it a disgrace to be drunk--so the Italian; +even the German would only go as far as a sort of beery bemuddlement +that made him a more ideal representative of the Vaterland: why must the +Englishman, of necessity, be the inferior in civilisation to these? I am +not willing to believe the task of such a reformation hopeless, though I +am perfectly convinced that no greater folly could be committed than to +attempt it by an Act of Parliament. + +When legislation has led men to be agreeable in society, unassuming in +manners, and gentle in deportment, it may make them temperate in their +liquor, but not before. The thing cannot be done in committee, nor by +a vote of the House. It is only to be accomplished by the filtering +process, by which the good habits of a nation drop down and permeate the +strata beneath; so that, in course of time, the whole mass, leavened +by the same ingredients, becomes one as completely in sentiment as in +interest. “Four-fifths of the ratepayers” will not effect this. After +all, Mr Lawson is only a second-hand discoverer. His bill was a mere +plagiarism from beginning to end. The whole text of his argument was +said and sung by poor Curran, full fifty odd years ago:-- + + “My children, be chaste till you’re tempted; + While sober, be wise and discreet; + And humble your bodies with fasting + Whenever you’ve nothing to eat.” + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornelius O’Dowd Upon Men And Women +And Other Things In General, by Charles Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O’DOWD UPON MEN *** + +***** This file should be named 22058-0.txt or 22058-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/5/22058/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General + Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 + +Author: Charles Lever + +Release Date: May 20, 2008 [EBook #22058] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN AND WOMEN AND OTHER THINGS IN GENERAL + +By Charles Lever + +Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine + +1864 + + + + +CONTENTS: + + Myself. + + A Friend Of Gioberts: Being A Reminiscence Of Seventeen Years Ago. + + Garibaldi's Worshippers. + + Something About Solferino And Ships. + + The Stranger At The Croce Di Malta. + + The Strange Man's Sorrow. + + Italian Law And Justice. + + The Organ Nuisance And Its Remedy. + + R. N. F. The Great Chevalier D'industrie Of Our Day. + + Gribldi + + A New Investment. + + Italian Traits And Characteristics. + + The Decline Of Whist. + + One Of Our "Two Puzzles". + + A Masterly Inactivity. + + A New Hansard. + + Foreign Clubs. + + A Hint For C. S. Examiners. + + Of Some Old Dogs In Office. + + Decline Of The Drama. + + Pensions For Governors. + + A Grumble. + + Of Our Brothers Beyond The Border. + + The Rule Nisi. + + On Climbing Boys. + + Linguists + + The Old Conjurors And The New. + + Gambling For The Million. + + The Intoxicating Liquors Bill. + + + + +TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. + +My dear Anster, + +If you knew how often I have thought of you as I was writing this +book,--if you knew how there rose before my mind memories of long ago--of +those glorious evenings with all those fine spirits, to think of whom is +a triumph even with all its sadness,--and if you knew how I long to meet +once more the few soldiers who survive of that "old guard,"--you would +see how naturally I dedicate my volume to him who was the best of us. +Accept it, I beg you, as a token of recollection and regard from your +affectionate friend, + +CORNELIUS O'DOWD. + +Lago Maggiore, July 20,1864. + + + + +NOTICE. + +AMIABLE AND ACCOMPLISHED READER, + +As I have very little to say for myself that is not said in some of +my opening pages, there is no need that I should delay you on the +threshold. + +You will learn, if you take the trouble, by what course of events I came +to my present pursuit, converting myself into what a candid, but not +complimentary, friend has called "a diverting Vagabond." + +The fact was, I gave the world every reasonable opportunity of knowing +that they had a remarkable man amongst them, but, with a stupidity all +their own, they wouldn't see it; so that when the solicitor who once +gave me a brief died--I believe it was a softening of the brain--I +burned my wig and retired from the profession. + +Now, let people say what they may, it is by no means easy to invent a +new line of life; and even if you should, there are scores of people +ready to start up and seize on your discovery; and as I write these +lines I am by no means sure that to-morrow will not see some other +Cornelius O'Dowd inviting the public to a feast of wisdom and +life-knowledge, with perhaps a larger stock than my own of "things not +generally known." I will disparage no man's wares. There is, I feel +assured, a market for us all. My rivals, or my imitators, whichever you +like to call them, may prove superior to me; they maybe more ingenious, +more various, more witty, or more profound; but take my word for it, +bland Header, there is always something in the original tap, whether +the liquor be Harvey sauce or L.L. whisky, and such is mine. You are, in +coming to me, frequenting the old house; and if I could only descend to +it, I could print you more testimonials to success than Mr Morrison's +of the pills, or the other man of cod-liver oil, but I scorn to give the +names, imparted as they were in secret gratitude. One only trick of +the trade I will condescend to--it is to assure you that you had need +to beware of counterfeits, and that no O'Dowderies are genuine except +signed by me. + +My heart is broke with requests for my autograph. Will a sympathising +public accept the above--which, of course, will be immediately +photographed. + + + + +CORNELIUS O'DOWD + + + + +MYSELF. + +Bland Reader,--If you ever look into the Irish papers--and I hope +you are not so exclusive regarding them as is Mr Cobden with the +'Times'--you will see that, under the title, "Landed Estates Court, +County Mayo," Judge Dobbs has just sold the town and lands of +Kilmuray-nabachlish, Ballaghy, and Gregnaslattery, the property of +Cornelius O'Dowd, Esq. of Dowd's Folly, in the same county. + +Now the above-recited lands, measuring seven hundred and fourteen acres, +two roods, and eleven perches, statute measure, were mine, and I am the +Cornelius O'Dowd, Esq., referred to in the same paragraph. + +Though it is perfectly true that, what between mortgages, settlement +claims, and bonds, neither my father nor myself owned these lands any +more than we did the island of Jamaica, it was a great blow to me to be +sold out; for, somehow or other, one can live a long time in Ireland on +parchment--I mean on the mere documents of an estate that has long +since passed away; but if you come once to an open sale and Judge Dobbs, +there's an end of you, and you'll not get credit for a pair of shoes the +day after. + +My present reason for addressing you does not require that I should go +into my family history, or mention more of myself than that I was called +to the Bar in '42; that I stood an unsuccessful election for Athlone; +that I served as a captain in the West Coast Rifles; that I married a +young lady of great personal attractions; and completed my misfortunes +by taking the chairmanship of the Vichnasehneshee silver mines, that +very soon left me with nothing but copper in my own pocket, and sent me +to Judge Dobbs and his Court on the Inns Quay. + +Like the rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would +"do something" for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, +and I have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord +Clarendon's day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly +with me, none said, "O'Dowd, we must do something for you;" and if it +was to rain commissionerships in lunacy, or prison inspectorships, I +don't believe one would fall upon C. O'D. I never knew rightly how it +was, but though I was always liked at the Bar mess, and made much of on +circuit, I never got a brief. People were constantly saying to me, "Con, +if you were to do this, that, or t'other," you'd make a hit; but it +was always conditional on my being somewhere, or doing something that I +never had attempted before. + +It was clear, if I was the right man, I wasn't in the right place; and +this was all the more provoking, because, let me do what I would, some +one was sure to exclaim, "Con, my boy, don't try that; it is certainly +not your line." "What a capital agent for a new assurance company you'd +be!" "What a success you'd have had on the stage! You'd have played Sir +Lucius better than any living actor. Why don't you go on the boards? Why +not start a penny newspaper? Why not give readings?" I wonder why they +didn't tell me to turn organist or a painter in oils. + +"You're always telling us how much you know of the world, Mr O'Dowd," +said my wife; "I wish you could turn the knowledge to some account." + +This was scarcely generous, to say the least of it. + +Mrs O'D. knew well that I was vain of the quality--that I regarded it +as a sort of specialty. In fact, deeming, with the poet, that the proper +study of mankind was man, I had devoted a larger share of my life to the +inquiry than quite consisted with professional advancement; and while +others pored over their Blackstone, I was "doing Baden;" and instead of +term reports and Crown cases, I was diverting myself in the Oberland or +on the Lago Maggiore. + +"And with all your great knowledge of life," continued she, "I don't +exactly see what it has done for you." + +Now, Mrs O'Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn't waste my +time in arguing with her--I didn't crush her, as I might, by telling +her that the very highest and noblest of a man's acquirements are, _ipso +facto_, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all +classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that +Greek and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar +fractions and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, +Mrs O'D. would have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the +rule-of-three against Sophocles and "all his works." I simply replied, +with that dignity which is natural to me, "I _am_ proud of my knowledge +of life; I do recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture +that makes up human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to +advertise my discovery for sale, like Holloway's Pills or somebody's +cod-liver oil." "Perhaps you knew nobody would buy it," cried she, +and flounced out of the room, the bang of the door being one of the +"epigrams in action" wives are skilled in. + +Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself +to those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of +their own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure +in all it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering +delighted over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, +for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been +my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm +colouring, and its cold tints. + +It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every +"handling," and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original. +"And can it be possible," cried I aloud, "that while picture-dealers +revel in fortune--fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured +canvass--that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist--I, +who read men as I read a French comedy--that I should be obliged to deny +myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, and +that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me than +mere physic?" + +I do not--I will not--I cannot, believe it. No class of persons could +be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich argosy +that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the +Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no +insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no +dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these +I purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the +possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into +Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that +I mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more +dearly than I intend to dispose of it. _Haud ignarus mali_; I am willing +to tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. "Don't +tell me of your successes," said a great physician to his colleague, +"tell me of your blunders; tell me of the people you've killed." I am +ready to do this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and +more, I will make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may +attach to an absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may +subject me to laughter. + +You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but +what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my +wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you +that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or +three in America; that I have been everywhere--eaten of everything--seen +everything. There's not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn't +grin a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Frres to the +Wilde Mann doesn't trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers +speak up when I stroll into the Chamber, and _prima donnas_ soar above +the orchestra, and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit. + +I don't like--I declare to you I do not like--saying these things; it +smacks of vanity. Now for my plan. I purpose to put these my gifts at +your disposal The year before us will doubtless be an eventful one. +What between Danes, Poles, and Italians, there must be a row somewhere. +The French are very eager for war; and the Austrians, as Paddy +says, "are blue-moulded for want of a beatin'." There will be grand +"battle-pieces" to paint; but, better than these, portraits, groups, +"tableaux de genre"--Teniers bits, too, at the porch of an ale-house, +and warm little interiors, in the style of Mieris. I shall be +instructive at times--very instructive; and whenever I am very nice +and dull, be assured that I'm "full of information, and know my subject +thoroughly." + +As "your own correspondent," I am free to go wherever I please. I have +left Mrs O'D. in Ireland, and I revel in an Arcadian liberty. These +are all my credentials; and if with their aid I can furnish you any +amusement as to the goings-on of the world and its wife, or the doings +of that amiable couple in politics, books, theatres, or socialities, +I seek for nothing more congenial to my taste, nor more adapted to my +nature, as a bashful Irishman. + +If I will not often obtrude, I will not altogether avoid, my personal +experiences; for there is this to be said, that no testimony is worth +much unless we know something of the temper, the tastes, and the +character of the witness. We have all heard, for instance, of the +gentleman who couldn't laugh at Munden's drolleries on the stage for +thinking of a debt of ten pounds that the actor owed him: and this same +spirit has a great deal to do--far more than we like to own--with +our estimate of foreign countries. It is so hard to speak well of the +climate where we had that horrible rheumatism, or laud the honesty of a +people when we think of that rascally scoundrel of the Hotel d'Odessa. +For these reasons I mean to come into the witness-box occasionally, and +give you frankly, not merely my opinions, but the way they were come by. +I don't affect to be superior to prejudices; I have as many of these as +a porcupine has bristles. There's all the egotism I mean to inflict on +you, unless it comes under the guise of an incident--"a circumstance +which really occurred to the author"--and now, _en route_. + +I wonder am I right in thinking that the present race of travelling +English know less about the Continent and foreigners generally than +their predecessors of, say, five-and-twenty years ago. Railroads and +rapid travelling might be one cause; another is, that English is now +more generally spoken by all foreigners than formerly; and it may be +taken as a maxim, that nothing was ever asked or answered in broken +phraseology that was worth the hearing. People with a limited knowledge +of a strange language do not say what they _wish_, but what they _can_; +and there is no name for the helplessness of him who is tied up in his +preter-pluperfect tense. Now we English are not linguists; even our +diplomatists are remarkable for their little proficiency in French. +I'm not sure that we don't benefit by this in the long-run. "Reden ist +silber, aber Schweigen ist gold"--"Speech is silver, but silence is +gold," says the German adage; and what a deal of wisdom have I seen +attributed to a man who was posed by his declensions into a listener! +One of the only countrymen of my own who has made a great career lately +in public life is not a little indebted to deafness for it. He was so +unlike those rash, impetuous, impatient Irish, who _would_ interrupt--he +listened, or seemed to listen, and he even smiled at the sarcasms that +he did not hear. + +Listening, if we did but know it, sits more gracefully on us than +speech, when that speech involves the denial of genders, and the utter +confusion of all cases and tenses. + +Next to holding their tongues, there's another thing I wish you English +would do abroad, which is, to dress like sane and responsible people. +Men are simply absurd; but the women, with their ill-behaved hoops and +short petticoats, are positively indecent; but the greatest of all +their travelling offences is the proneness to form acquaintance at +_tables-d'hte_. + +It is, first of all, a rank indiscretion for any but men to dine at +these places. They are almost, as a rule, the resort of all that is +disreputable in both sexes. You are sure to eat badly, and in the very +worst of company. My warning is, however, meant for my countrywomen +only: men can, or at least ought, to take care of themselves. As for +myself, don't be shocked; but I do like doubtful company--that is, I am +immensely interested by all that class of people which the world calls +adventurers, whether the same be railroad speculators, fortune-hunters, +discoverers of inexhaustible mines, or Garibaldians. Your respectable +man, with a pocket-book well stored with his circular notes, and his +passport in order, is as uninteresting as a "Treckshuyt" on a Dutch +canal; but your "martyr to circumstance" is like a smart felucca in a +strong Levanter; and you can watch his course--how he shakes out his +reefs or shortens sail--how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his +colours--with an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of +cleverness--what stores of practical ability--were lost to the world +in these out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently, +play every game well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot, +especially with the pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass +of qualities that win success! and, what often is harder, win goodwill +in life! There they are, by some unhappy twist in their natures, +preferring the precarious existence of the race-course or the +billiard-table; while others, with about a tithe of their talents, are +high in place and power. I met one of these men to-day, and a strong +specimen of the class, well dressed, well whiskered, very quiet in +manner, almost subdued in tone, but with a slight restlessness in his +eye that was very significant. We found ourselves at table, over +our coffee, when the others had left, and fell into conversation. He +declined my offered cigar with much courtesy, preferring to smoke +little cigarettes of his own making; and really the manufacture was very +adroit, and, in its way, a study of the maker's habits. We talked over +the usual topics--the bad dinner we had just eaten, the strange-looking +company, the discomfort of the hotel generally, and suchlike. + +"Have we not met before?" asked he, after a pause. "If I don't mistake, +we dined together aboard of Leslie's yacht, the Fawn." + +I shook my head. "Only knew Sir Francis Leslie by name; never saw the +Fawn." + +The shot failed, but there was no recoil in his gun, and he merely bowed +a half apology. + +"A yacht is a mistake," added he, after another interval. "One is +obliged to take, not the men one wants, but the fellows who can bear the +sea. Leslie, for instance, had such a set that I left him at Messina. +Strange enough, they took us for pirates there." + +"For pirates!" + +"Yes. There were three fishing-boats--what they call _Bilancelle_--some +fifteen or sixteen miles out at sea, and when they saw us coming along +with all canvass set, they hauled up their nets and ran with all speed +for shore. Rather absurd, wasn't it? but, as I told Leslie about his +friends, 'the blunder wasn't so great after all; there was only a vowel +between Raffs and Riffs.'" + +The disparagement of "questionable people" is such an old device of +adventurers, that I was really surprised such a master of his art as +my present friend would condescend to it. It belonged altogether to an +inferior practitioner; and, indeed, he quickly saw the effect it had +produced upon me, as he said, "Not that I care a straw for the fellows I +associate with; my theory is, a gentleman can know any one." + +Richard was himself again as he uttered this speech, lying well back +in his chair, and sending a thin cloud of incense from the angle of his +mouth. + +"What snobs they were in Brummel's day, for instance, always asking if +this or that man was fit to be known! Why, sir, it was the very fellows +they tabooed were the cream of the set; 'it was the cards they threw out +were the trumps.'" + +The illustration came so pat that he smiled as he perceived by a twinkle +of my eye that I appreciated it. + +"My father," continued he, "knew Brummel well, and he told me that his +grand defect was a want of personal courage--the very quality, of all +others, his career required. His impertinences always broke down when +brought to this test. I remember an instance he mentioned. + +"Amongst the company that frequented Carlton House was a certain old +Admiral P------, whom the Prince was fond of inviting, though he did not +possess a single agreeable quality, or any one convivial gift, except a +great power of drinking the very strongest port without its producing +the slightest show of effect upon him. + +"One night Brummel, evidently bent on testing the old sailor's head, +seated himself next him, making it his business to pass the decanters as +briskly as he could. The admiral asked nothing better; filled and drank +bumpers. Not content with this legitimate test, Brummel watched his +opportunity when the admiral's head was turned, and filled his glass +up to the brim. Four or five times was the trick repeated, and with +success; when at last the admiral, turning quickly around, caught him in +the very act, with the decanter still in his hand. Fixing his eyes +upon him with the fierceness of a tiger, the old man said, 'Drink it, +sir--drink it!' and so terrified was Brummel by the manner and the look +that he raised the glass to his lips and drained it, while all at the +table were convulsed with laughter." + +The Brummel school--that is, the primrose-glove adventurers--were a very +different order of men from the present-day fellows, who take a turn +in Circassia or China, or a campaign with Garibaldi; and who, with all +their defects, are men of mettle and pluck and daring. Of these latter I +found my new acquaintance to be one. + +He sketched off the early part of the "expedition" graphically enough +for me, showing the disorder and indiscipline natural to a force +where every nationality of Europe was represented, and not by its most +favourable types. + +"I had an Irish servant," said he, "whose blunders would fill a volume. +His prevailing impression, perhaps not ill-founded on the whole, was, +that we all had come out for pillage; and while a certain reserve +withheld most of us from avowing this fact, he spoke of it openly and +freely, expatiating admiringly on Captain This and Major That, who +had done a fine stroke of work in such a store, or such another +country-house. As for his blunders, they never ceased. I was myself the +victim of an absurd one. On the march from Melazzo I got a severe +strain in the chest by my horse falling and rolling over me. No bone +was broken, but I was much bruised, and a considerable extravasation of +blood took place under the skin. Of course I could not move, and I was +provided with a sort of litter, and slung between two mules. The +doctor prescribed a strong dose of laudanum, which set me to sleep, and +despatched Peter back to Melazzo with an order for a certain ointment, +which he was to bring without delay, as the case was imminent; this was +impressed upon him, as the fellow was much given to wandering off, when +sent of a message, after adventures of his own. + +"Fully convinced that I was in danger, away went Peter, very sad about +me, but even more distressed lest he should forget what he was sent for. +He kept repeating the words over and over as he went, till they became +by mere repetition something perfectly incomprehensible, so that when +he reached Melazzo nobody could make head or tail of his message. Group +after group gathered about and interrogated him, and at last, by means +of pantomime, discovered that his master was very ill. Signs were made +to inquire if bleeding was required, or if it was a case for amputation, +but he still shook his head in negative. 'Is he dying?' asked one, +making a gesture to indicate lying down. Peter assented. 'Oh, then it +is the _unzione estrema_ he wants!' 'That's it,' cried Peter, +joyfully--'unzione it is.' Two priests were speedily found and +despatched; and I awoke out of a sound sleep under a tree to see three +lighted candles on each side of me, and two priests in full vestments +standing at my feet and gabbling away in a droning sort of voice, +while Peter blubbered and wrung his hands unceasingly. A jolly burst +of laughter from me soon dispelled the whole illusion, and Peter had to +hide himself for shame for a week after." + +"What became of the fellow--was he killed in the campaign?" + +"Killed! nothing of the kind; he rose to be an officer, served on +Nullo's staff, and is at this very hour in Poland, and, if I mistake +not, a major." + +"Men of this stamp make occasionally great careers," said I, carelessly. + +"No, sir," replied he, very gravely. "To do anything really brilliant, +the adventurer must have been a gentleman at one time or other: the +common fellow stops short at petty larcenies; the man of good blood +always goes in for the mint." + +"There was, then," asked I, "a good deal of what the Yankees call +'pocketing' in that campaign of Garibaldi's?" + +"Less than one might suppose. Have you not occasionally seen men at a +dinner-party pass this and refuse that, waiting for the haunch, or the +pheasant, or the blackcock that they are certain is coming, when all +of a sudden the jellies and ices make their appearance, and the curtain +falls? So it was with many of us; we were all waiting for Rome, and +licking our lips for the Vatican and the Cardinals' palaces, when in +came the Piedmontese and finished the entertainment. If I meet you here +to-morrow, I can tell you more about this;" and so saying he arose, gave +me an easy nod, and strolled away. + +"Who is that most agreeable gentleman who took his coffee with me?" +asked I of the waiter as I entered the _salle_. + +"It's the Generale Inglese, who served with Garibaldi." + +"And his name?" + +"Ah, _per bacco!_ I never heard his name--Garibaldi calls him Giorgio, +and the ladies who call here to take him out to drive now and then +always say Giorgino--not that he's so very small, for all that." + +My Garibaldian friend failed in his appointment with me this morning. +We were to have gone together to a gallery, or a collection of ancient +armour, or something of this sort, but he probably saw, as your clever +adventurer _will_ see, with half an eye, that I could be no use +to him--that I was a wayfarer like himself on life's highroad; and +prudently turned round on his side and went to sleep again. + +There is no quality so distinctive in this sort of man or woman--for +adventurer has its feminine--as the rapid intuition with which he seizes +on all available people, and throws aside all the unprofitable ones. A +money-changer detecting a light napoleon is nothing to it. What are the +traits by which they guide their judgment--what the tests by which they +try humanity, I do not know, but that they do read a stranger at first +sight is indisputable. That he found out Cornelius O'Dowd wasn't a +member of the British Cabinet, or a junior partner in Baring's, was, you +may sneeringly conjecture, no remarkable evidence of acuteness. But why +should he discover the fact--fact it is--that he'd never be one penny +the richer by knowing me, and that intercourse with me was about as +profitable as playing a match at billiards "for the table"? + +Say what people will against roguery and cheating, rail as they may at +the rapacity and rascality one meets with, I declare and protest, after +a good deal of experience, that the world is a very poor world to +him who is not the mark of some roguery! When you are too poor to be +cheated, you are too insignificant to be cherished; and the man that is +not worth humbugging isn't very far from bankruptcy. + +It gave me a sort of shock, therefore, when I saw that my friend took +this view of me, and I strolled down moodily enough to the Chamber of +Deputies. Turin is a dreary city for a lounger; even a resident finds +that he must serve a seven years' apprenticeship before he gets any +footing in its stiff ungenial society--for of all Italians, nothing +socially is less graceful than a Piedmontese. They have none of the +courteous civility, none of the urbane gentleness of the peninsular +Italians. They are cold, reserved, proud, and eminently awkward; not the +less so, perhaps, that their habitual tongue is the very vilest jargon +that ever disfigured a human mouth. Of course this is an efficient +barrier against intercourse with strangers; and though French is spoken +in society, it bears about the same relation to that language at Paris, +as what is called pigeon-English at Hong-Kong does to the tongue in use +in Belgravia. + +When I reached the Palazzo Carignan, as the Chamber is called, the +_sance_ was nearly over, and a scene of considerable uproar prevailed. +There had been a somewhat sharp altercation between General Bixio and +the "Left," and M. Mordini had repeatedly appealed to the President to +make the General recall some offensive epithets he had bestowed on the +"party of movement." There were the usual cries and gesticulations, +the shouts of derision, the gestures of menace; and, above all, the +tinkle-tinkle of the Presidents bell, which was no more minded than the +summons for a waiter in an Irish inn; and on they went in this hopeless +way, till some one, I don't know why, cried out, "That's enough--we are +satisfied;" by which it seemed that somebody had apologised, but for +what, or how, or to whom, I have not the very vaguest conception. + +With all their depreciation of France, the Italians are the most +persistent imitators of Frenchmen, and the Chamber was exactly a copy of +the French Chamber in the old Louis Philippe days--all violence, noise, +sensational intensity, and excitement. + +I have often heard public speakers mention the difficulty of adjusting +the voice to the size of a room in which they found themselves for the +first time, and the remark occurred to me as figuratively displaying one +of the difficulties of Italian public men. The speakers in reality never +clearly knew how far their words were to carry--whether they spoke to +the Chamber or to the Country. + +Is there or is there not a public opinion in Italy? Can the public +speaker direct his words over the heads of his immediate surrounders +to countless thousands beyond them? If he cannot, Parliament is but a +debating-club, with the disadvantage of not being able to select the +subjects for discussion. + +The glow of patriotism is never rightly warm, nor is the metal of party +truly malleable, without the strong blast of a public opinion. + +The Turin Chamber has no echo in the country; and, so far as I see, +the Italians are far more eager to learn what is said in the French +Parliament than in their own. + +I remember an old waiter at the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin, who got a +prize in the lottery and retired into private life, but who never could +hear a bell ring without crying out, "Coming, sir." The Italians remind +me greatly of him: they have had such a terrible time of flunkeyism, +that they start at every summons, no matter what hand be on the +bell-rope. + +To be sure the French did bully them awfully in the last war. Never was +an alliance more dearly paid for. We ourselves are not a very compliant +or conciliating race, but we can remember what it cost us to submit to +French insolence and pretension in the Crimea; and yet we did submit to +it, not always with a good grace, but in some fashion or other. + +Here comes my Garibaldino again, and with a proposal to go down to Genoa +and look at the Italian fleet. I don't suppose that either of us know +much of the subject; and indeed I feel, in my ignorance, that I might be +a senior Lord of the Admiralty--but that is only another reason for +the inquiry. "One is nothing," says Mr Puff, "if he ain't critical" So +Heaven help the Italian navy under the conjoint commentaries of myself +and my friend! Meanwhile, and before we start, one word more of Turin. + + + + +A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. + +Here I am at the "Feder" in Turin--as dirty a hotel, be it said +passingly, as you'll find out of Ireland, and seventeen long years it +is since I saw it first. Italy has changed a good deal in the +meanwhile--changed rulers, landmarks, systems, and ideas; not so my +old acquaintance, the Feder! There's the dirty waiter flourishing his +dirtier napkin; and there's the long low-ceilinged _table-d'hte_ room, +stuffy and smoky, and suffocating as ever; and there are the little +grinning coteries of threes and fours round small tables soaking their +rolls in chocolate, and puffing their "Cavours," with faces as innocent +of soap as they were before the war of the liberation. After all, +perhaps, I'd have no objection if some friend would cry out, "Why, Con, +my boy, you don't look a day older than when I saw you here in '46, I +think! I protest you have not changed in the least. What _elixir vit_ +have you swallowed, old fellow? Not a wrinkle, nor a grey hair," and so +on. And yet seventeen years taken out of the working part of a man's +life--that period that corresponds with the interval between after +breakfast, we'll say, and an hour before dinner--makes a great gap in +existence; for I did very little as a boy, being not an early riser, +perhaps, and now, in the evening of my days, I have got a theory that a +man ought to dine early and never work after it. Though I'm half +ashamed, on so short an acquaintance with my reader, to mention a +personal incident, I can scarcely avoid--indeed I cannot avoid--relating +a circumstance connected with my first visit to the "Hotel Feder." + +I was newly married when I came abroad for a short wedding-tour. The +world at that time required new-married people to lay in a small stock +of Continental notions, to assist their connubiality and enable them to +wear the yoke with the graceful ease of foreigners; and so Mrs O'D. and +I started with one heart, one passport, and--what's not so pleasant--one +hundred pounds, to comply with this ordinance. Of course, once over the +border--once in France--it was enough. So we took up our abode in a +very unpretending little hotel of Boulogne-sur-Mer called "La Cour de +Madrid," where we boarded for the moderate sum of eleven francs fifty +centimes per diem--the odd fifty being saved by my wife not taking the +post-prandial cup of coffee and rum. + +There was not much to see at Boulogne, and we soon saw it. For a week or +so Mrs O'D. used to go out muffled like one of the Sultan's five hundred +wives, protesting that she'd surely be recognised; but she grew out of +the delusion at last, and discovered that our residence at the Cour de +Madrid as effectually screened us from all remark or all inquiry as if +we had taken up our abode in the Catacombs. + +Now when one has got a large stock of any commodity on hand--I don't +care what it is--there's nothing so provoking as not to find a market. +Mrs O'D.'s investment was bashfulness. She was determined to be the +most timid, startled, modest, and blushing creature that ever wore +orange-flowers; and yet there was not a man, woman, or child in the +whole town that cared to know whether the act for which she left England +was a matrimony or a murder. + +"Don't you hate this place, Cornelius?"--she never called me Con in the +honeymoon. "Isn't it the dullest, dreariest hole you have ever been in?" + +"Not with you." + +"Then don't yawn when you say so. I abhor it. It's dirty, it's vulgar, +it's dear." + +"No, no. It ain't dear, my love; don't say, dear." + +"Billiards perhaps, and filthy cigars, and that greenish +bitter--anisette, I think they call it--are cheap enough, perhaps; but +these are all luxuries I can't share in." + +Here was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand that presaged the first +connubial hurricane. A married friend--one of much experience and +long-suffering--had warned me of this, saying, "Don't fancy you'll +escape, old fellow; but do the way the Ministry do about Turkey--put the +evil day off; diplomatise, promise, cajole, threaten a bit if needs be, +but postpone;" and, strong with these precepts, I negotiated, as the +phrase is, and, with a dash of reckless liberality that I tremble at now +as I record it, I said, "You've only to say where--nothing but where +to, and I'll take you--up the Rhine, down the Danube, Egypt, the +Cataracts------" + +"I don't want to go so far," said she, dryly. "Italy will do." + +This was a stunner. I hoped the impossible would have stopped her, but +she caught at the practicable, and foiled me. + +"There's only one objection," said I, musing. + +"And what may that be? Not money, I hope." + +"Heaven forbid--no. It's the language. We get on here tolerably well, +for the waiter speaks broken English; but in Italy, dearest, English is +unknown." + +"Let us learn Italian, then. My aunt Groves said I had a remarkable +talent for languages." + +I groaned inwardly at this, for the same aunt Groves had vouched for +a sum of seventeen hundred and odd pounds as her niece's fortune, but +which was so beautifully "tied up," as they called it, that neither +Chancellor nor Master were ever equal to the task of untying it. + +"Of course, dearest, let us learn Italian;" and I thought how I'd crush +a junior counsel some day with a smashing bit of Dante. + +We started that same night--travelled on day after day--crossed +Mont Cenis in a snow-storm, and reached the Feder as wayworn and +wretched-looking a pair as ever travelled on an errand of bliss and +beatitude. + +"In for a penny" is very Irish philosophy, but I can't help that; so I +wrote to my brother Peter to sell out another hundred for me out of the +"Threes," saying "dear Paulina's health required a little change to a +milder climate" (it was snowing when I wrote, and the thermometer over +the chimneypiece at 9 Reaumur, with windows that wouldn't shut, and a +marble floor without carpet)--"that the balmy air of Italy" (my teeth +chattered as I set it down) "would soon restore her; and indeed already +she seemed to feel the change." That she did, for she was crouching over +a pan of charcoal ashes, with a railroad wrapper over her shoulders. + +It's no use going over what is in every one's experience on first coming +south of the Alps--the daily, hourly difficulty of not believing that +you have taken a wrong road and got into Siberia; and strangest of +all it is to see how little the natives think of it. I declare I often +thought soap must be a great refrigerant, and I wish some chemist would +inquire into the matter. + +"Are we ever to begin this blessed language?" said Mrs O'D. to me, after +four days of close arrest--snow still falling and the thermometer going +daily down, down, lower and lower. Now I had made inquiries the day +before from the landlord, and learned that he knew of a most competent +person, not exactly a regular teacher who would insist upon our going +to work in school fashion, but a man of sense and a gentleman--indeed, +a person of rank and title, with whom the world had gone somewhat badly, +and who was at that very moment suffering for his political opinions, +far in advance, as they were, of those of his age. + +"He's a friend of Gioberti," whispered the landlord in my ear, while his +features became animated with the most intense significance. Now, I +had never so much as heard of Gioberti, but I felt it would be a +deep disgrace to confess it, and so I only exclaimed, with an air of +half-incredulity, "Indeed!" + +"As true as I'm here," replied he. "He usually drops in about noon to +read the 'Opinione,' and, if you permit, I'll send him up to you. His +name is Count Annibale Castrocaro." + +I hastened forthwith to Mrs O'D., to apprise her of the honour that +awaited us; repeating, a little _in extenso_, all that the host had +said, and finishing with the stunning announcement, "and a friend of +Gio-berti." Mrs O'Dowd never flinched under the shock, and, too proud to +own her ignorance, she pertly remarked, "I don't think the more of him +for that." + +I felt that she had beat me, and I sat down abashed and humiliated. +Meanwhile Mrs O'D. retired to make some change of dress; but, +reappearing after a while in her smartest morning toilette, and a very +coquettish little cap, with cherry-coloured ribbons, I saw what the word +Count had done at once. + +Just as the clock struck twelve, the waiter flung wide the double doors +of our room, and announced, as pompously as though for royalty, "II +Signor Conte di Castrocaro," and there entered a tall man slightly +stooping in the shoulders, with a profusion of the very blackest hair +on his neck and shoulders, his age anything from thirty-five to +forty-eight, and his dress a shabby blue surtout, buttoned to the throat +and reaching below the knees. He bowed and slid, and bowed again, till +he came opposite where my wife sat, and then, with rather a dramatic +sort of grace, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. She +reddened a little, but I saw she wasn't displeased with the air of +homage that accompanied the ceremony, and she begged him to be seated. + +I own I was disappointed with the Count, his hair was so greasy, and +his hands so dirty, and his general get-up so uncared for; but Mrs O'D. +talked away with him very pleasantly, and he replied in his own broken +English, making little grimaces and smiles and gestures, and some very +tender glances, do duty where his parts of speech failed him. In fact, I +watched him as a sort of psychological phenomenon, and I arrived at the +conclusion that this friend of Gioberti's was a very clever artist. + +All was speedily settled for the lessons--hour, terms, and mode of +instruction. It was to be entirely conversational, with a little +theme-writing, no getting by heart, no irregular verbs, no declensions, +no genders. I did beg hard for a little grammar, but he wouldn't hear of +it. It was against his "system," and so I gave in. + +We began the next day, but the Count ignored me altogether, directing +almost all his attentions to Mrs O'D.; and as I had already some small +knowledge of the elementary part of the language, I was just as well +pleased that she should come up, as it were, to my level. From this +cause I often walked off before the lesson was over, and sometimes, +indeed, I skulked it altogether, finding the system, as well as +Gioberti's friend, to be an unconscionable bore. Mrs O'D., on the +contrary, displayed an industry I never believed her to possess, and +would pass whole evenings over her exercises, which often covered +several sheets of letter-paper. + +We had now been about five weeks in Turin, when my brother wrote to +request I would come back as speedily as I could, that a case in which +I held a brief was high in the cause-list, and would be tried very early +in the session. I own I was not sorry at the recall. I detested the +dreary life I was leading. I hated Turin and its bad feeding and bad +theatres, its rough wines and its rougher inhabitants. + +"Did you tell the Count we are off on Saturday?" asked I of Mrs O'D. + +"Yes," said she, dryly. + +"I suppose he's inconsolable," said I, with a sneer. + +"He's very sorry we're going, if you mean that, Mr O'Dowd; and so am I +too." + +"Well, so am not I; and you may call me a Dutchman if you catch me here +again." + +"The Count hopes you will permit him to see you. He asked this morning +whether he might call on you about four o'clock." + +"Yes, I'll see him with sincere pleasure for once," I cried; "since it +is to say good-bye to him." + +I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count +was announced and shown in. "Excuse me, Count," said I, "for receiving +you so informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to +England, and no time to spare." + +"I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as +it is," said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never +observed in him before. + +"Well, sir," said I, stiffly; "I am at your orders." + +It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to +own that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper +to relate what took place. I can but give the substance of our +conversation. It is not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this +purport:--The Count had come to inform me that, without any intention or +endeavour on his part, he had gained Mrs O'Dowd's affections and won her +heart! Yes, much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting +opposite to me at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was +apologising for having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, +he was most circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one +side, and that he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself +as became a Gran' Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that +might mean. + +My amazement--I might almost call it my stupefaction--at the +unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to +him without an effort at interruption. + +"I have come to you, therefore, to-day," said he, "to give up her +letters." + +"Her letters!" exclaimed I; "and she has written to you!" + +"Twenty-three times in all," said he, calmly, as he drew a large black +pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. +"The earlier ones are less interesting," said he, turning them over. "It +is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she +commences to call me 'Caro Animale'--she meant to say Annibale, but, +poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger--'Animale Mio'--the same +error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, 'Diletto del mio cuore, quando +non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il mio +Tiranno'--that was _you_." + +I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought +he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. +I saw that Gioberti's friend had his wits about him, and resumed the +conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in +my wife's handwriting. + +"Very true," said he; "these, as you will perceive by the official +stamp, are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura--the originals +are safe." + +"And with what object," asked I, gasping--"safe for what?" + +"For you, lllustrissimo," said he, bowing, "when you pay me two thousand +francs for them." + +"I'll knock your brains out first," said I, with another clutch at the +poker, but the muzzle of the pistol was now directly in front of me. + +"I am moderate in my demands, signor," said he, quietly; "there are men +in my position would ask you twenty thousand; but I am a galantuomo----" + +"And the friend of Gioberti," added I, with a sneer. + +"Precisely so," said he, bowing with much grace. + +I will not weary you, dear reader, with my struggles--conflicts that +almost cost me a seizure on the brain--but hasten to the result. I beat +down the noble Count's demand to one-half and for a thousand francs +I possessed myself of the fatal originals, written unquestionably and +indisputably by my wife's hand; and then, giving the Count a final piece +of advice, never to let me see more of him, I hurried off to Mrs O'Dowd. + +She was out paying some bills, and only arrived a few minutes before +dinner-hour. + +"I want you, madam, for a moment here," said I, with something of +Othello, in the last act, in my voice and demeanour. + +"I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O'Dowd," said +she, snappishly. + +"No, madam; you may probably find that you'll need them both at the end +of our interview." + +"What do you mean, sir?" asked she, haughtily. + +"This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam," said I, with +the tone of the avenging angel. "Do you know these? are these in your +hand? Deny it if you can." + +"Why should I deny it? Of course they're mine." + +"And you wrote this, and this, and this?" cried I, almost in a scream, +as I shook forth one after another of the letters. + +"Don't you know I did?" said she, as hotly; "and nothing beyond a venial +mistake in one of them!" + +"A what, woman? a what?" + +"A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up +half the night at my exercises?" + +"Exercises!" + +"Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies +of them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day--here +are the rough ones;" and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of +papers all scrawled over and blotted. "And now, sir, once more, what do +you mean?" + +I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. "Where +does that Count Castrocaro live?" I asked. + +"Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left +Turin--started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He's a Gran' +Galantuomo, sir," added he, as I stood stupefied. + +"I am aware of that," said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my +packing. + +"Did you settle with the Count?" asked my wife at the door. + +"Yes," said I, with my head buried in my trunk. + +"And he was perfectly satisfied?" + +"Of course he was--he has every reason to be so." + +"I am glad of it," said she, moving away--"he had a deal of trouble with +those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him." I could have +told what they cost _me_; but I never did, till the present moment. + +I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what +abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the +evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill +before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. +All these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their +bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with +composure of this friend of Gioberti. + +Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he +gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, "and he'd give ten more to any one +who'd tell him what to do with it." I strongly suspect this is pretty +much the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is--at +least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, +where is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack? + +The very last thing Italians have in their minds is a war with England. +If we have not done them any great or efficient service, we have always +spoken civilly of them, and bade them a God-speed. But, besides a +certain goodwill that they feel for us, they entertain--as a nation with +a very extended and ill-protected coast-line ought--a considerable dread +of a maritime power that could close every port they possess, and lay +some very important towns in ashes. + +Now, it is exactly by the possession of a fleet that, in any future +war between England and France, these people may be obliged to ally +themselves to France. The French will want them in the Mediterranean, +and they cannot refuse when called on. + +Count Cavour always kept telling our Foreign Office, "A strong Italy is +the best thing in the world for you. A strong Italy is the surest of all +barriers against France." There may be some truth in the assertion if +Italy could spring at once--Minerva fashion--all armed and ready for +combat, and stand out as a first-rate power in Europe; but to do this +requires years of preparation, long years too; and it is precisely +in these years of interval that France can become all-dominant in +Italy--the master, and the not very merciful master, of her destinies +in everything. France has the guardianship of Italy--with this addition, +that she can make the minority last as long as she pleases. + +Perhaps my Garibaldian companion has impregnated me with an unreasonable +amount of anti-French susceptibility, for certainly he abuses our dear +allies with a zeal and a gusto that does one's heart good to listen to; +and I do feel like that honest Bull, commemorated by Mathews, that "I +hate prejudice--I hate the French." So it is: these revolutionists, +these levellers, these men of the people, are never weary of reviling +the French Emperor for being a _parvenu_. Human inconsistency cannot go +much farther than this. Not but I perfectly agree with my Garibaldian, +that we have all agreed to take the most absurdly exaggerated estimate +of the Emperor's ability. Except in some attempts, and not always +successful attempts, to carry out the policy and plans of the first +Empire, there is really nothing that deserves the name of statesmanship +in his career. Wherever he has ventured on a policy, and accompanied it +by a prediction, it has been a failure. Witness the proud declaration +of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, with its corroboration in the +Treaty of Villafranca! The Emperor, in his policy, resembles one of +those whist-players who never plan a game, but play trick by trick, and +rather hope to win by discovering a revoke than from any honest success +of their own hand. It is all the sharp practice of statecraft that +he employs: nor has he many resources in cunning. The same dodge that +served him in the Crimea he revived at Villafranca. It is always the +same ace he has in his sleeve! + +The most ardent Imperialist will not pretend to say that he knows his +road out of rome or Mexico, or even Madagascar. For small intrigue, +short speeches to deputations, and mock stag-hunts, he has not his +superior anywhere. And now, here we are in Genoa, at the Hotel Feder, +where poor O'Connell died, and there's no fleet, not a frigate, in the +port. + +"Where are they?" + +"At Spezia." + +"Where is Spezia?" + +The landlord, to whom this question is propounded, takes out of a +pigeon-hole of his desk a large map and unfolds it, saying, proudly, +"There, sir, that is Spezia--a harbour that could hold Portsmouth, +and Plymouth, and Brest, and Cherbourg "--I'm not sure he didn't say +Calais--"and yet have room for our Italian fleet, which, in two years' +time, will be one of the first in Europe." + +"The ships are building, I suppose?" said I. + +"They are." + +"And where?" + +"In America, at Toulon, and in England." + +"None in Italy?" + +"Pardon me; there is a corvette on the stocks at Leghorn, and they are +repairing a boiler at Genoa. Ah! Signor John Bull, take care; we have +iron and coal mines, we have oak and hemp, and tallow and tar. There +was a winged lion once that swept the seas before people sang 'Rule +Britannia.' History is going to repeat itself." + +"Let me be called at eight to-morrow morning, and my coffee be ready by +nine." + +"And we shall want a vetturino for Spezia," added my Garibaldian; "let +him be here by eleven." + + + + +GARIBALDI'S WORSHIPPERS. + +The road from Genoa to Spezia is one of the most beautiful in Europe. As +the Apennines descend to the sea they form innumerable little bays and +creeks, alongside of which the road winds--now coasting the very shore, +now soaring aloft on high-perched cliffs, and looking down into deep +dells, or to the waving tops of tall pine-trees. Seaward, it is a +succession of yellow-stranded bays, land-locked and narrow; and on the +land side are innumerable valleys, some waving with horse-chestnut and +olive, and others stern and rock-bound, but varying in colour from the +bluish-grey of marble to every shade of porphyry. + +For several miles after we left Genoa, the road presented a succession +of handsome villas, which, neglected and uncared for, and in most +part untenanted, were yet so characteristically Italian in all their +vast-ness--their massive style and spacious plan--as to be great +ornaments of the scenery. Their gardens, too--such glorious wildernesses +of rich profusion--where the fig and the oleander, the vine and the +orange, tangle and intertwine--and cactuses, that would form the wonder +of our conservatories, are trained into hedgerows to protect cabbages. +My companion pointed out to me one of these villas on a little jutting +promontory of rock, with a narrow bay on one side, almost hidden by the +overhanging chestnut-trees. "That," said he, "is the Villa Spinola. It +was from there, after a supper with his friend Vecchi, that Garibaldi +sailed on his expedition to Marsala. A sort of decent secrecy was +maintained as to the departure of the expedition; but the cheers of +those on shore, as the boats pulled off, told that the brave buccaneers +carried with them the heartfelt good wishes of their countrymen." +Wandering on in his talk from the campaign of Sicily and Calabria, +my companion spoke of the last wild freak of Garibaldi and the day of +Aspromonte, and finally of the hero's imprisonment at Varignano, in the +Gulf of Spezia. + +It appeared from his account that the poor wounded sufferer would have +fared very ill, had it not been for the provident kindness and care of +his friends in England, who supplied him with everything he could want +and a great deal he could by no possibility make use of. Wine of +every kind, for instance, was largely sent to one who was a confirmed +water-drinker, and who, except when obliged by the impure state of the +water, never ventured to taste wine. If now and then the zealous anxiety +to be of service had its ludicrous side--and packages arrived of which +all the ingenuity of the General's followers failed to detect what the +meaning might be--there was something very noble and very touching in +this spontaneous sympathy of a whole people, and so Garibaldi felt it. + +The personal homage of the admirers--the worshippers they might be +called--was, however, an infliction that often pushed the patience of +Garibaldi's followers to its limit, and would have overcome the gentle +forbearance of any other living creature than Garibaldi himself. They +came in shoals. Steamboats and diligences were crammed with them, and +the boatmen of Spezia plied as thriving a trade that summer as though +Garibaldi were a saint, at whose shrine the devout of all Europe came to +worship. In vain obstacles were multiplied and difficulties to entrance +invented. In vain it was declared that only a certain number of visitors +were daily admitted, and that the number was already complete. In vain +the doctors announced that the General's condition was prejudiced, and +his feverish state increased, by these continual invasions. Each new +arrival was sure to imagine that there was something special or peculiar +in his case to make him an exception to any rule of exclusion. + +"I knew Garibaldi in Monte Video. You have only to tell him it's +Tomkins; he'll be overjoyed to see me." "I travelled with him from +Manchester to Bridgeport; he'll remember me when he sees me; I lent him +a wrapper in the train." "I knew his son Menotti when at school." "I was +in New York when Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking +for his candles;" such and suchlike were the claims which would not +be denied. At last the infliction became insupportable. Some nights +of unusual pain and suffering required that every precaution against +excitement should be taken, and measures were accordingly concerted how +visitors should be totally excluded. There was this difficulty in the +matter, that it might fall at this precise moment some person of real +consequence might have, or some one whose presence Garibaldi would +really have been well pleased to enjoy. All these considerations were, +however, postponed to the patient's safety, and an order was sent to +the several hotels where strangers usually stopped to announce that +Garibaldi could not be seen. + +"There is a story," said my companion, "which I have heard more than +once of this period, but for whose authenticity I will certainly not +vouch. _Se non vero e' ben trovato_, as regards the circumstance. It +was said that a party of English ladies had arrived at the chief hotel, +having come as a deputation from some heaven-knows-what association in +England, to see the General, and make their own report on his health, +his appearance, and what they deemed his prospect of perfect recovery. +They had come a very long journey, endured a considerable share of +fatigues and certain police attentions, which are not exactly what +are called amenities. They had come, besides, on an errand which might +warrant a degree of insistance even were they--which they were not--of +an order that patiently puts up with denial. When their demand for +admission was replied to by a reference to the general order excluding +all visitors, they indignantly refused to be classed in such a category. +They were not idle tourists, or sensation-hunting travellers. They were +a deputation! They came from the Associated Brothers and Sisters +of Freedom--from the Branch Committee of the Ear of Crying +Nationalities--they were not to be sent away in this light and +thoughtless manner. + +"The correspondence was animated. It lasted the whole day, and the +last-sent epistle of the ladies bore the date of half-past eleven at +night. This was a document of startling import; for, after expressing, +and not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of +the writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort +of way, the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to +England with the story of their rejection. + +"Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the +battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade; +and that, from the hour of these ladies' arrival in England, all +supplies would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the +greater number of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the +suite of Garibaldi, not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts +and choice hosiery, silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the +ordinary wear of people to whom such luxuries were not known even by +description, it was no mean menace that seemed to declare all this was +to have an end. + +"One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of +Arundel's port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that +English liqueur called 'Punch sauce,' and so on; and they very reasonably +disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel. + +"It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed +itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari, +one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore +that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair, +mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat +closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the +General, was the plan--a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief +some annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more +than was now intended. + +"To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in +his habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was +introduced. The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One +dropped, Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot +of his bed; another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained +the bedside to grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion +to water it with her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party +took out her scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble +head. They sobbed over him--they blubbered over him--they compared him +with his photograph, and declared he was libelled--they showered cards +over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, +not unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they +declared that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they'd have willingly +made a pilgrimage to Mecca. + +"It is said," continued my informant, "that Ripari never could be +induced to give another representation; and that he declared the +luxuries that came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed +by a deputation of sympathisers. + +"But to Garibaldi himself, the sympathy and the sympathisers went on to +the last; and kind wishes and winter-clothing still find their way, with +occasionally very tiresome visitors, to the lone rock at Caprera." + + + + +SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. + +Our host of the Feder was not wrong. There was not a word of +exaggeration in what he said of Spezia. It could contain all the +harbours of France and England, and have room for all the fleets of +Europe besides. About seven miles in depth, and varying in width from +two to three and a half, it is fissured on every side by beautiful +little bays, with deep water everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, +or a bar, throughout the whole extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf +has its protection by the long coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away +to the southward and eastward, so that the security is perfect, and a +vessel once anchored within the headlands between Lerici and Palmaria is +as safe as in dock. + +The first idea of making a great arsenal and naval depot of Spezia came +from the Great Emperor. It is said that he was not more than one day +there, but in that time he planned the fort which bears his name, and +showed how the port could be rendered all but impregnable. Cavour took +up the notion, and pursued it with all his wonted energy and activity +during the last three or four years of his life. He carried through the +Chamber his project, and obtained a vote for upwards of two millions +sterling; but his death, which occurred soon after, was a serious blow +to the undertaking; and, like most of the political legacies of the +great statesman, the arsenal of Spezia fell into the hands of weak +executors. + +The first great blunder committed was to accord the chief contract to +a bubble company, who sold it, to be again resold; so that it is said +something like fifteen changes of proprietary occurred before the first +spadeful of earth was turned. + +The inordinate jealousy Italians have of foreigners, and their fear lest +they should "utilise" Italy, and carry away all her wealth with them, +has been the source of innumerable mistakes. From this, and their +own ignorance of marine engineering, Spezia has already, without the +slightest evidence of a commencement, swallowed up above eight millions +of francs--the only palpable results being the disfigurement of a very +beautiful road, and the bankruptcy of some half-dozen contractors. + +There is nothing of which one hears more, than of the readiness and +facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts +himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the +management of new machinery. + +Every newly-come English engineer was struck with this, and expressed +freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. +After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself +disappointed--that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence +no progress was made--that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but +did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or +say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something +new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some one +branch, and never ask to go beyond it, was a sentiment they could not +understand. Every one, in fact, would have liked to do everything, and, +as a consequence, do it exceedingly ill. + +Assuredly the Count Cavour was the political Marquis de Carabas of +Italy. Everything you see was his! No other head seemed to contrive, no +other eye to see, nor ear to hear. These railroads--as much for military +movements as passenger traffic--this colossal harbour, even to the two +iron-clads that lie there at anchor--were all of his designing. They +are ugly-looking craft, and have a look of pontoons rather than ships +of war; but they are strong, and have a low draught of water, and were +intended especially for the attack of Venice, just when the Emperor +pulled up short at Villafranca. It is not generally known, I believe, +but I can vouch for the fact, that so terrified were the Austrians on +receiving at Venice the disastrous news of Solferino, that three of the +largest steamers of the Austrian Lloyd's Company were brought up, and +sunk within twelve hours after the battle. So hurriedly was the whole +done that no time was given to remove the steward's stores, and the +vessels went down as they stood! + +This reminds me of a little incident, for whose exact truth I can +guarantee. On the day of the battle of Solferino, the Austrian Envoy +at Rome dined with the Cardinal Antonelli. It was a very joyous little +dinner, each in the highest spirits--satisfied with the present, and +full of hope for the future. The telegram which arrived at mid-day told +that the troops were in motion, and that the artillery fire had already +opened. The position was a noble one--the army full of spirit, and all +confident that before the sun should set the tide of victory would have +turned, and the white legions of the Danube be in hot pursuit of their +flying enemy. Indeed, the Envoy came to dinner fortified with a mass of +letters from men high in command, all of which assumed as indisputable +that the French must be beaten. Of the Italians they never spoke at all. + +As the two friends sat over the dessert, they discussed what at that +precise moment might be going on over the battle-field. Was the conflict +still continuing? Had the French reserves been brought up? Had they, +too, been thrown back, beaten and disordered? and where was the fourth +corps under the Prince Napoleon? They were forty thousand strong--could +they have arrived in time from the Po? All these casualties, and many +others, did they talk over, but never once launching a doubt as to the +issue, or ever dreaming that the day was not to reverse all the late +past, and bring back the Austrians in triumph to Milan. + +As they sat, the Prefect of Police was announced and introduced. He +came with the list of the persons who were to be arrested and sent to +prison--they were one hundred and eighteen, some of them among the first +families of Rome--so soon as certain tidings of the victory arrived, and +the game of reaction might be safe to begin. + +"No news yet, Signor Prefetto! come back at ten," said the Cardinal + +At ten he presented himself once more. The Cardinal and his friend were +taking coffee, but less joyous, it seemed, than before. At least they +looked anxious for news, and started at every noise in the street that +might announce new-come tidings. "We have heard nothing since you were +here," said the Cardinal. "His Excellency thinks that, at a moment +of immense exigency, they may not have immediately bethought them of +sending off a despatch." + +"There can be no doubt what the news will be when it comes," said the +Envoy, "and I'd say, make the arrests at once." + +"I don't know; I'm not sure. I think I'd rather counsel a little more +patience," said the Cardinal. "What if you were to come back at, let us +say, midnight." The Prefect bowed, and withdrew. + +At midnight it was the same scene, only that the actors were more +agitated; the Envoy, at least, worked up to a degree of impatience that +bordered on fever; for while he persisted in declaring that the result +was certain, he continued to censure, in very-severe terms, the culpable +carelessness of those charged with the transmission of news. "Ah!" cried +he, "there it comes at last!" and a loud summons at the bell resounded +through the house. + +"A telegram, Eminence," said the servant, entering with the despatch. +The Envoy tore it open: there were but two words,--"_Sanglante +droute_." + +The Cardinal took the paper from the hands of the overwhelmed and +panic-struck minister, and read it. He stood for a few seconds gazing on +the words, not a line or lineament in his face betraying the slightest +emotion; then, turning to the Envoy, he said, "Bon soir; allons dormir;" +and moved away with his usual quick little step, and retired. + +And all this time I have been forgetting the Italian fleet, which lies +yonder beneath me. The Garibaldi, that they took from the Neapolitans; +the Duca di Genova, the Maria Adelaide, and the Regina are there, all +screw-propellers of fifty guns each; the Etna, a steam-corvette; and +some six or seven old sailing craft, used as school ships; and, lastly, +the two cuirasse gunboats, Formidabile and Terribile, and which, with a +jealousy imitated from the French, no one is admitted on board of. +They are provided with "rams" under the water-line, and have a strange +apparatus by which about one-third of the deck towards the bow can be +raised, like the lid of a snuff-box, leaving the forepart of the ship +almost on a level with the water. Under what circumstances, and how, +this provision is to be made available, I have not the very vaguest +conception. + +These vessels were never intended as sea-going ships; and the batteries +are an exaggeration of the mistake in the Gloire, for even with the +slightest sea the ports must be closed. Besides this defect, they roll +abominably, and with a full head of steam on they cannot accomplish +seven knots. + +Turning from the ships to the harbour, I could not help thinking of +Sydney Smith's remark on the Reform Club, "I prefer your room to your +company;" for, after all, what a sorry stud it is for such a magnificent +stable! It is but a beginning, you will say. True enough, and so is +everything just now here; but, except the Genoese, the Italians have few +real sailors. There are no deep-sea fisheries, and the small craft which +creep along close to shore are not the nurseries of seamen. The world, +however, has resolved, by a large vote, to be hopeful about Italy; and, +of course, she will have a fleet, as she will have all the trade of the +Levant, immensely productive mines, and vast regions of cotton. "What +for no?" as Meg Dodds says; but I can't help thinking there are no +people in Europe so much alike as the Italians and the Irish; and I ask +myself, How is it that every one is so sanguine about the one, and +so hopeless about the other? Why do we hear of the capacity and the +intelligence of the former, and only of the latter what pertains to +their ignorance and their sloth? Oh! unjust generation of men! have +not my poor countrymen all the qualities you extol in these same +Peninsulars, plus a few others not to be disparaged? + + + + +THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. + +At the Croce di Malta, where we stopped--the Odessa, we heard, +was atrociously bad--we met a somewhat depressed countryman, whose +familiarity with place and people was indicated by several little +traits. He rebuked the waiter for the salad oil, and was speedily +supplied with better; he remonstrated about the wine, and a superior +"cru" was served the day following. The book of the arrivals, too, was +brought to him each day as he sat down to table, and he grunted out, +I remember, in no very complimentary fashion as he read our names, +"Nobodies." + +My Garibaldian friend had gone over to Massa, so that I found myself +alone with this gentleman on the night of my arrival; for, when the +company of the _table-d'hte_ withdrew, he and I were discovered, as the +stage-people say, seated opposite to each other at the fire. + +It blew hard without; the sea beat loudly on the shingly shore, and +even sent some drifts of spray against the windows; while within doors +a cheerful wood-fire blazed on the ample hearth, and the low-ceilinged +room did not look a whit the worse that it suggested snugness instead +of splendour. I had got my cup of coffee and my cognac on a little table +beside me; and while I filled the bowl of my pipe, I bethought me how +cheap and come-at-able are often the materials of our comfort, if one +had but the prudence which ignores all display. My companion, apparently +otherwise occupied in thought, sat gazing moodily at the fire, and to +all seeming unaware of my presence. + +"Will my smoking annoy you, sir?" asked I, as I was ready to begin. + +"No," said he, without looking up. "I'd like to know where one could go +to live nowadays if it did." + +"Very true," said I; "the practice is almost universal" + +"So is child-murder, so is profane swearing, so is wearing a beard, and +poisoning by strychnine." + +I was somewhat struck by his enumeration of modern atrocities, and I +said, in a tone intended to invite converse, "You are no admirer, then, +of what some are fain to call progress?" + +He started, and, turning a fierce sharp glance on me, said, "I'd rather +you'd touch me with that hot poker there, sir, than hurl that hateful +word at my ears. If there's a thing I hate the most, it's what cant--a +vile modern slang--calls 'Progress.' You're just in the spot at this +moment to mark one of its high successes. Do you know Spezia?" "Not in +the least; never was here before." "Well, sir, I have known it, I'll not +stop to count how many years; but I knew it when that spot yonder, where +you see that vile tall chimney, with its tail of murky smoke, was a +beautiful little villa, all overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where +you perceive that red glare--the flame of a smelting furnace--there was +an orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse +stood, on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, +turn to this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four +main lines, cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen +timber, with swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the +other, led--ay, and not four years ago--along the margin of the sea, +with a forest of chestnuts on the other side, two lines of acacias +forming a shade along it, so that in the mid-day of an Italian July you +might walk it in delicious shadow. In the Gulf itself the whole scene +was mirrored, and not a headland, nor rock, nor cliff, that was not +pictured below. It was, in a word, a little paradise; nor were the +people all unworthy of their lovely birthplace. They were a quiet, +civil, obliging, simple-minded set--if not inviting strangers to settle +amongst them, never rude or repelling to them; equitable in dealings, +and strange to all disturbance or outrage. What they are now is no more +easy to say than what a rivulet is when a torrent has carried away its +banks and swept its bed. Two thousand navvies, the outsweepings of jails +and the galleys, have come down to the works; a horde of contractors, +sub-contractors, with the several staffs of clerks, inspectors, and +suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its beauty, uprooting its +repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and converting the very gem +of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp--a vast amphitheatre, where +liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul miasma, centrifugal pumps, +and tertian fevers, fight all day for the mastery. And for what?--for +what? To fill the pockets of knavish ministers and thieving +officials--to make an arsenal that will never be finished, for a fleet +that will never be built." My companion, it is needless to say, was no +optimist; but the strange point was, that while he was unsparing of his +censure on Cavour and the "Piedmontese party," he was no apologist for +the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he launched out +freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and corruption, and +freely corroborated our own Premier's assertions, by calling the Pope's +the "worst government in Europe." In fact, he showed very clearly that +the smaller states of Italy were well or ill administered in the direct +ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal interference,--Modena being +the worst, and Tuscany the best of them. + +Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went--for he not +merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the +characters and tempers of the leading Italians--yet, with all this, I +could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy, +and yet did not like the new, what he did wish for? + +"I have my theory on that subject, sir," said he; "nor am I the less +enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt +it." + +"It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose," said I; +"Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers." + +"Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you +did." + +I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial +concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy. + +"I'd unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a +small circle around Rome, are not Latins--they are Greeks. I'd bring +them back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with +craft and subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they'd not +cheat the 'Hellenes' as they do the French and the English; and as the +only true way to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I'd unite +them to a race that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What +is it, I ask you, makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, +the prudent, hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States? +Simply the fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no +longer serves him. The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and +Paddy must use his hands instead of his head. The same would happen with +the Italian. Give him a Greek master, and you'll see what he'll become." + +"But the Greeks, after all," said I, "do not present such a splendid +example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands." + +"And don't you see why?" broke he in. "Have you ever looked into a +gambling-house when the company had no 'pigeon,' and were obliged to +play against each other. They have lost all decency--all the semblance +of good manners and decorum. Whatever little politeness they had put +on to impose upon the outsider was gone, and there they were in all the +naked atrocity of their bad natures. It is thus you see the Greeks. You +have dropped in upon them unfairly; you have invaded a privacy they had +hoped might be respected. Give them a nation to cheat, however; let +the pigeon be introduced, and you'll not see a better bred and a more +courtly people in Europe." + +That they had great social qualities he proceeded to show from a number +of examples. They were, in fact, in the world of long ago what the +French are to our own day, and there was no reason to suppose that +the race had lost its old characteristics. According to my companion's +theory, Force had only its brief interval of domination anywhere; the +superior intelligence was sure to gain the upper hand at last; and +we, in our opposition to this law, were supply retarding an inevitable +tendency of nature--protracting the fulfilment of what we could not +prevent. + +I got him back from these speculations to speak of himself, and he told +me some experiences which will, perhaps, account for the displeasure +with which he regards the changed fortunes of Spezia. I shall give +his narrative as nearly as I can in his own words, and in a chapter to +itself. + + + + +THE STRANGE MAN'S SORROW. + +"When I first knew Spezia, it was a very charming spot to pass the +summer in. The English had not found it out A bottle of Harvey sauce or +a copy of 'Galignani' had never been seen here; and the morning meal, +which now figures in my bill as 'Dejeuner complet--two francs.' was then +called 'Coffee,' and priced twopence. I used to pass my day in a small +sail-boat, and in my evenings I played halfpenny whist with the judge +and the commander of the forces and a retired envoy, who, out of a +polite attention to me as a stranger, agreed to play such high stakes +during my sojourn at the Baths. + +"They were excellent people, of unblemished character, and a politeness +I have rarely seen equalled. Nobody could sneeze without the whole +company rising to wish him a long and prosperous life, or a male heir +to his name; and as for turning the trump card without a smile and a bow +all round to the party, it was a thing unheard of. + +"I thought if I could only secure a spot to live in in such an Arcadia, +it would be charming, but this was a great difficulty. No one had any +accommodation more than he wanted for himself. The very isolation that +gave the place its charm excluded all speculation, and not a house was +to be had. In my voyagings, however, around the Gulf, I landed one +day at a little inlet, surrounded with high lands, and too small to +be called a bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a +small villa. It looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, +and where you take off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs +are made and the rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one +side and an orangery at the other, and it all looked the neatest and +prettiest little thing one ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I +drew my boat on shore and strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not +even a dog. There was a deep well with a draw-bucket, and I filled my +gourd with ice-cold water; and then plucking a ripe orange that had just +given me a bob in the eye, I sat down to eat it. While I was engaged, I +heard a wicket open and shut, and saw an old man, very shabbily dressed, +and with a mushroom straw hat, coming towards me. Before I could make +excuses for my intrusion, he had welcomed me to Pertusola--'The Nook,' +in English--and invited me to step in and have a glass of wine. + +"I took him for the steward or fattore, and acceded, not sorry to ask +some questions about the villa and its owner. He showed me over the +house, explaining with much pride how a certain kitchen-range came from +England, though nobody ever knew the use of it, but it was all very +comfortable. The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more +space, and contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would +have approved of. Yet there were capabilities--great capabilities; +and so, before I left, I took it from the old gentleman in the +rusty costume, who turned out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the +'commendatore' of I don't know what order, and various other dignities +beside, all recited and set forth in the lease. + +"I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved +the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn't an island, but it was +all but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock +denied access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable +pine wood to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that +even now, when I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire +of an evening, I just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through +its olive groves, or watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara +mountains. + +"I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got +flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little +plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses, +so that the Queen--she was at Spezia for the bathing--came once to see +my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was as +gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in +their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with +enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times +as inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and +its quality--was it a spring--did it ever fail--and when, and how? Then +as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? What the +anchorage was like--mud--and why mud? And when I said there was always +a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, why? and I did +explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, which acted +as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back to verify +my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining everything, +and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to experience +the currents of air. 'You are right,' said he, as he got into his boat, +'quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a smelting-furnace.' + +"I thought it odd praise at the time, but before six months I received +notice to quit. + +"Pertusola had been sold to a lead company, one of the directors having +strongly recommended the site as an admirable harbour, with good water, +and a perpetual draught of wind, equal to a blast-furnace." + +Looking at the dress-coat in which you once captivated dinner-parties, +on a costeimonger--seeing the strong-boned hunter that has carried you +over post and rail, in a cab,--are sore trials; but nothing, according +to my companion's description, to the desecration of your house and home +by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the "Inferno," too, +pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its flash, +and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the passionate +warmth with which he described it. + +"They had begun that chimney, sir," cried he, "before I got out of the +house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they +were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see +the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the +place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can +see on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no +depth to anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in +stillness. No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, +I must be brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn't been +eight months there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and +four persons in plain clothes landed from her, and pottered about the +shore--I thought looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my +house, and asked permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace. +I acceded, and in they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do +you think he was? The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran +cold when I saw him. + +"'You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,' said he to me, coolly. + +"'Yes, and I might have been living there still,' replied I, 'if it +had not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak +enough to be polite.' + +"He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, +passed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, +and I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; +for not only did he describe the exact measurements between various +points, but the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the +currents, and the prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by +running out a pier here, and a breakwater there--by filling up this, and +deepening that--safe anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while +the headlands could be easily fortified, and 'at a moderate cost,' I +quote himself, 'of say twenty two or three millions of francs, while a +fort erected on the island there would command the whole entrance.' + +"'And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?' cried I; for, +as they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly. + +"He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, +'Who knows? the French perhaps--perhaps your own people one of these +days.' + +"I'd like to have said, but I didn't, 'We could walk in and walk out +here, with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with +a mackintosh.' + +"They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf +and dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man--he looked +exactly like an owl--said, with a little grin, 'We're going to disturb +you again.' + +"'How so?' cried I; 'you can't smelt lead here.' + +"'No, but we're going to make an arsenal. Where you stand now will be a +receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You'll have to +clear out before the New Year.' + +"'Who is he? who is that with the spectacles?' asked I of one of the +servants, who waited outside with cloaks and umbrellas. + +"'That's the Conte di Cavour,' said the fellow, haughtily; and thus was +the whole murder out at once. They turned me out, sir, in two months, +and I never ventured to take a lease of a place till he died. After that +event, I purchased a little spot on the island of Tino yonder, and built +myself a cottage. They could neither smelt metal nor build a ship there, +and I hugged myself at the thought of safety. But, would you believe +it? last week--only last week--his successor, in rummaging over Cavour's +papers in the Foreign Office, comes upon a packet labelled 'Spezia,' and +discovers a memorandum in these words, 'The English Admiral, at dinner +to-day, laughed at the idea of defending the mouth of the Gulf from +the island. He said the entrance should be two-thirds closed by a +breakwater, and a strong fort _ fleur d'eau_ built on Tino. I have +thought of it all night; he is perfectly right, and I'll do it;' and +here, sir," said my companion, drawing a paper from his pocket, "is a +'sommation' from the minister to surrender my holding on Tino, receiving +a due compensation for the same, and once more betake myself, heaven +knows where; for, though the great Count Cavour is dead and gone, +his grand intentions are turning up every day, out of drawers and +pigeonholes, and I shrewdly suspect that neither Pio Nono nor myself +will live to see the last of them." + + + + +ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. + +My Garibaldian friend has returned, but only to bid me good-bye and be +off again. The Government, it would seem, are rather uneasy as to the +movements of the "Beds," and quietly intimated to my friend that +they were sure he had something particular to do--some urgent private +affairs--at Geneva; and, like the well-bred dog in the story, he does +not wait for any further suggestions, but goes at once. + +He revenged himself, however, all the time at breakfast, by talking very +truculently before the waiters of what would happen when Garibaldi took +the field again, and how miserably small Messrs Batazzi & Co. would look +under the circumstances. Indeed, as he warmed with his subject, he +went the length of declaring that, without a very ample apology for the +events of Aspromonte, he did not believe Garibaldi would consent to take +Venice, or drive the French out of Rome. + +With a spirit of tantalising he prolonged this same breakfast for +upwards of two hours, during which the officer of the gendarmerie came +and went, and came again, very eager to see him depart, but evidently +with instructions neither to molest nor interfere with him. + +"Just look at that beggar," cried the Garibaldian; "if he has come in +here once during the last hour, he has come a dozen times, and all on my +account! And I mean to smoke three 'cavours' over my anisetto before I +leave. Waiter, tell the vetturino he'll have plenty of time to throw +a feed to his cattle before I start. You know," added he, "if I was +disposed to be troublesome, I'd not budge: I'd write up to Turin to the +Legation and claim British protection; and I'd have these fellows on the +hip, for they stupidly gave me a reason for my expulsion. They said I +was conspiring. Now I could say, Prove it; and if we only went to law, +it would take ten or twelve years to decide it." + +My companion now went on to show that, by a small expenditure of money +and a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity, a lawsuit need never end +in Italy. "First of all, you could ask the opposite party, Who was his +advocate? and on his naming him, you could immediately set to work to +show that this man was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with +the commonest pretension to honesty would dream of employing him. The +history of his father could be adduced, and any private little anecdotes +of his mother would find a favourable opportunity for mention. Though a +mere skirmish, if judiciously managed, this will occupy a week or two, +and at the same time serve to indicate that you mean to show fight; for +by this time the 'Legale's' blood will be up, and he is certain to make +reprisals on _your_ man, so that for a month or so you and the other +principal are in the position of men who, having come out to fight +a duel, are first gratified with the spectacle of a row between the +seconds. However, at last it is arranged that the lawyers are worthy +of each other; and the next step is to demand the names of all the +witnesses. This opens a campaign of unlimited duration, for, as nobody +is rash enough to trust himself or his cause to real and _bon-fide_ +testimony, witnesses are usually selected amongst the most astute and +ready-witted persons of your acquaintance." "Oh," cried I, "this is a +little too strong, isn't it?" "Let me give you an instance," said he, +good-humouredly, and not in the least disposed to be displeased with my +expression of distrust. "Some time back an American gentleman took up +his abode for some weeks on the Chiaja at Naples, and in the same house +there lived an Italian, with whom, from frequently meeting on the stairs +and corridors, a sort of hat-touching acquaintance had grown up. At +length one day, as the American was passing hastily out, the Italian +accosted him with a courteous bow and smile, and said, 'When will it be +your perfect convenience, signor, to repay me that little loan of two +hundred ducats it was my happy privilege to have lent you last month?' + +"The American, astounded as he was, had yet patience to inquire whether +he had not mistaken him for another. + +"The other smiled somewhat reproachfully, as he said, 'I trust, signor, +you are not disposed to ignore the obligation. You are the gentleman who +lives, I believe, on the second floor left?' + +"'Very true; I do live there, and I owe you nothing. I never borrowed a +carlino from you--I never spoke to you before; and if you ever take the +liberty to speak to me again, I'll knock you down.' + +"The Italian smiled again, not so blandly, perhaps, but as +significantly, and saying, 'We shall see,' bowed and retired. + +"The American thought little more of the matter till, going to the +Prefecture to obtain his vis for Borne, he discovered that his passport +had been stopped, and a detainer put upon him for this debt. He hastened +at once to his Minister, who referred him to the law-adviser of the +Legation for counsel. The man of law looked grave; he neither heeded the +angry denunciations of the enraged Yankee, nor his reiterated assurances +that the whole was an infamous fraud. He simply said, 'The case is +difficult, but I will do my best.' After the lapse of about a week, a +message came from the Prefect to say that the stranger's passport was at +his service whenever he desired to have it. + +"'I knew it would be so!' cried the American, as he came suddenly upon +his lawyer in the street. 'I was certain that you were only exaggerating +the difficulty of a matter that must have been so simple; for, as I +never owed the money, there was no reason why I should pay it.' + +"'It was a case for some address, notwithstanding,' said the other, +shaking his head. + +"'Address! fiddle-stick! It was a plain matter of fact, and needed +neither skill nor cunning. You of course showed that this fellow was a +stranger to me--that we had never interchanged a word till the day he +made this rascally demand?' + +"'I did nothing of the kind, sir. If I had put in so contemptible a +plea, you would have lost your cause. What I did was this: I asked what +testimony he could adduce as to the original loan, and he gave me the +name of one witness, a certain Count well known in this city, who was at +breakfast with him when you called to borrow this money, and who saw the +pieces counted out and placed in your hand.' + +"'You denounced this fellow as a perjurer?' + +"'Far from it, sir. I respect the testimony of a man of station and +family, and I would not insult the feelings of the Count by daring to +impugn it; but as the plaintiff had called only one witness to the loan, +I produced two just as respectable, just as distinguished, who saw you +repay the debt! You are now free; and remember, sir, that wherever +your wanderings lead you, never cease to remember that, whatever be +our demerits at Naples, at least we can say with pride, The laws are +administered with equal justice to all men!'" + +The entrance of the gendarme at this moment cut short the question I +was about to ask, whether I was to accept this story as a fact or as a +parable. + +"Here he comes again. Only look at the misery in the fellow's face! and +you see he has his orders evidently enough; and he dare not hurry me. I +think I'll have a bath before I start." + +"It is scarcely fair, after all," said I. "I suppose he wants to get +back to his one o'clock dinner." + +"I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a +scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe--the most generous, the +most trustful, the most unsuspecting--make a brigadier of Gendarmerie of +him for three months, and he'll come out scarcely a shade brighter than +the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! Do you know what our friend yonder +is at now?" + +"No. He appears to be trying to take a stain out of one of his yellow +gauntlets." + +"No such thing. He is noting down your features--taking a written +portrait of you, as the man who sat at breakfast with me on a certain +morning of a certain month. Take my word for it, some day or other when +you purchase a hat too tall in the crown, or you are seen to wear your +whiskers a trifle too long or bushy, an intimation will reach you at +your hotel, that the Prefect would like to talk with you; the end of +which will be the question, 'Whether there is not a friend you are most +anxious to meet in Switzerland, or if you have not an uncle impatient to +see you at Trieste?' And yet," added he, after a pause, "the Piedmontese +are models of liberality and legality in comparison with the officials +in the south. In Sicily, for instance, the laws are more corruptly +administered than in Turkey. I'll tell you a case, which was, however, +more absurd than anything else. An English official, well known at +Messina, and on the most intimate terms with the Prefect, came back from +a short shooting-excursion he had made into the interior, half frantic +with the insolence of the servants at a certain inn. The proprietor +was absent, and the waiter and the cook--not caring, perhaps, to be +disturbed for a single traveller--had first refused flatly to admit him; +and afterwards, when he had obtained entrance, treated him to the worst +of food, intimating at the same time it was better than he was used +to, and plainly giving him to understand that on the very slightest +provocation they were prepared to give him a sound thrashing. Boiling +over with passion, he got back to Messina, and hastened to recount his +misfortunes to his friend in power. + +"'Where did it happen?' asked the hard-worked Prefect, with folly enough +on his hands without having to deal with the sorrows of Great Britons. + +"'At Spalla deMonte.' + +"'When?' + +"'On Wednesday last, the 23d.' + +"'What do you want me to do with them?' + +"'To punish them, of course.' + +"'How--in what way?' + +"'How do I know? Send them to jail.' + +"'For how long?' + +"'A month if you can--a fortnight at least.' + +"'What are the names?' asked the Prefect, who all this time continued to +write, filling up certain blanks in some printed formula before him. + +"'How should I know their names? I can only say that one was the cook, +the other the waiter.' + +"'There!' said the Prefect, tossing two sheets of printed and +written-over paper towards him--'there! tell the landlord to fill in the +fellows' names and surnames, and send that document to the Podesta. They +shall have four weeks, and with hard labour.' + +"The Englishman went his way rejoicing. He despatched the missive, and +felt his injuries were avenged. + +"Two days after, however, a friend dropped in, and in the course of +conversation mentioned that he had just come from Spalla de Monte, where +he had dined so well and met such an intelligent waiter; 'which, I own,' +said he, 'surprised me, for I had heard of their having insulted some +traveller last week very grossly.' + +"The Englishman hurried off to the Prefecture. 'We are outraged, +insulted, laughed at!' cried he: 'those fellows you ordered to prison +are at large. They mock your authority and despise it.' + +"A mounted messenger was sent off at speed to bring up the landlord to +Messina, and he appeared the next morning, pale with fear and trembling. +He owned that the Prefect's order had duly reached him, that he had +understood it thoroughly; 'but, Eccellenza,' said he, crying, 'it was +the shooting season; people were dropping in every day. Where was I to +find a cook or a waiter? I must have closed the house if I parted with +them; so, not to throw contempt on your worship's order, I sent two +of the stablemen to jail in their place, and a deal of good it will do +them.'" + +While I was laughing heartily at this story, my companion turned towards +the gendarme and said, "Have you made a note of his teeth? you see they +are tolerably regular, but one slightly overlaps the other in front." + +"Signor Gnrale," said the other, reddening, "I'll make a note of +_your_ tongue, which will do quite as well." + +"Bravo!" said the Garibaldian; "better said than I could have given you +credit for. I'll not keep you any longer from your dinner. Will you bear +me company," asked he of me, "as far as Chiavari? It's a fine day, and +we shall have a pleasant drive." + +I agreed, and we started. + +The road was interesting, the post-horses which we took at Borghetto +went well, and the cigars were good, and somehow we said very little to +each other as we went. + +"This is the real way to travel," said my companion; "a man to smoke +with and no bother of talking; there's Chiavari in the hollow." + +I nodded, and never spoke. + +"Are you inclined to come on to Genoa?" + +"No." + +And soon after we parted--whether ever to meet again or not is not so +easy to say, nor of very much consequence to speculate on. + + + + +THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. + +There is scarcely any better measure of the amount of comfort a man +enjoys than in the sort of things of which he makes grievances. When +the princess in the Eastern story passed a restless night on account of +the rumpled rose-leaf she lay on, the inference is, that she was not, +like another character of fiction, accustomed to "lie upon straw." + +Thus thinking, I was led to speculate on what a happy people must +inhabit the British Islands, seeing the amount of indignation and +newspaper wrath bestowed upon what is called the Organ Nuisance. Now, +granting that it is not always agreeable to have a nasal version of the +march in 'William Tell,' 'Home, sweet Home,' or 'La Donna mobile,' +under one's window at meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker +hours of headache, surely the nation which cries aloud over this as a +national calamity must enjoy no common share of Fortune's favour, and +have what the Yankees call a "fine time" here below. + +Scarcely a week, however, goes over without one of these persecutors of +British ears being brought up to justice, and some dreary penny-a-liner +appears to prosecute in the person of a gentleman of literary pursuits, +whose labours, like those of Mr Babbage, may be lost to the world, if +the law will not hunt down the organs, and cry "Tally high-ho" to the +"grinders." + +It might be grave matter of inquiry whether the passing annoyance +of 'Cherry ripe' was not a smaller infliction than some of the tiresome +lucubrations it has helped to muddle; and I half fancy I'd as soon +listen to the thunder as drink the small beer it has soured into +vinegar. + +However, as the British Public is resolved on making it a grievance, and +as some distinguished statesman has deemed it worth his while to devise +a bill for its suppression, it is in vain to deny that the evil is one +of magnitude. England has declared she will not be ground down by the +Savoyard, and there is no more to be said of it. + +A great authority in matters of evasion once protested that he would +engage to drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament that ever +was framed, and I believe him. So certain is language to be too wide or +too narrow--to embrace too much, and consequently fail in +distinctness, or to include too little, and so defeat the attempt to +particularise--that it does not call for more than an ordinary amount of +acuteness to detect the flaws of such legislation. Then, when it comes +to a discussion, and amendments are moved, and some honourable gentleman +suggests that after the word "Whereas" in section 93 the clause should +run "in no case, save in those to be hereafter specified," &c., there +comes a degree of confusion and obscurity that invariably renders +the original parent of the measure unable to know his offspring, and +probably intently determined to destroy it. That in their eagerness for +law-making the context of these bills is occasionally overlooked, one +may learn from the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as +the punishment of a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that +one-half of the sum should go to the county, one-half to the informer. +Parliament, however, altered the law, but overlooked the context. +Imprisonment with hard labour was decreed as the penalty of the offence, +and the clause remained--"one-half to the county, one-half to the +informer." + +A Judge of no mean acuteness, the Chief Baron O'Grady, once declared, +with respect to an Act against sheep-stealing, that after two careful +readings he could not decide whether the penalties applied to the +owner, of the sheep, the thief, or the sheep itself, for that each +interpretation might be argumentatively sustained. + +How will you suppress the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits +of a man's domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his +area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the 'Hat-catcher's Daughter' +because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by 'Sich +a gettin' up stairs' because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long +may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his +barrels--the dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how +long or how loud the grand chorus in 'Nabucco' should be performed? What +endless litigation will be instituted by any attempt to provide for +all these and a score more of similar casualties, not to speak of the +insolent persecution that may be practised by the performance of tunes +of a party character. Fancy Dr Wiseman composing a pastoral to the air +of 'Croppies, lie down,' or the Danish Minister writing a despatch to +the inspiriting strains of 'Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.' There +might come a time, too, when 'Sie sollen ihm nicht haben' might grate on +a French ambassador's ears. Can your Act take cognisance of all these? + +I see nothing but inextricable confusion in the attempt--confusion, +difficulty, and defeat. There will be an Act, and an Act to amend that +Act, and another Act to alter so much of such an Act, and then a final +Act to repeal them all; so that at last the mover of a bill on the +subject will be the greatest "organ nuisance" that the world has yet +heard of. + +It was "much reflecting" over these things, as my Lord Brougham says, +that I sauntered along the Riviera from Genoa, and came to the little +town of Chiavari, with its long sweep of yellow beach in front and its +glorious grove of orange-trees behind--sure, whether the breeze came +from land or sea, to inhale health and perfume. There is a wide old +Piazza in the centre of the town, with a strange, dreary sort of inn +with a low-arched entrance, under whose shade sit certain dignitaries of +the place of an evening, sipping their coffee and talking over what they +imagine to be the last news of the day. From these "Conscript Fathers" I +learned that Chiavari is the native place of the barrel-organ, that +from this little town go forth to all the dwellers in remotest lands +the grinders of the many-cylindered torment, the persecutor of the +prose-writer, the curse of him who calculates. Just as the valleys of +Savoy supply white-mice men, and Lucca produces image-carriers, so does +Chiavari yield its special product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, +in their ambitions, have attempted the "industry," but they have +egregiously failed; and Chiavari remains as distinctive in its product +as Spitalfields for its shawls, or Dresden for its china. Whether there +may be some peculiarity in the biceps of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar +development which imparts power to his performance, I know not. I am +forced to own that I have failed to discover to what circumstance or +from what quality this excellence is derivable; but there is the fact, +warranted and confirmed by a statistical return, that but for Chiavari +we should have no barrel-organs. + +"Never imagine," said a wise prelate, "that you will root Popery out of +England till you destroy Oxford. If you want to get rid of the crows, +you must pull down the rookery." The words of wisdom flashed suddenly +over my mind as I walked across the silent Piazza at midnight; and I +exclaimed--"Yes! here is the true remedy for the evil. With two hours +of a gunboat and four small Armstrongs the thing is done; batter down +Chiavari, and Bab-bage will bless you with his last breath. Pull down +the cookery, and crush the young rooks in the ruins. Smash the cradle +and the babe within it, and you need not fear the man!" + +There is a grand justice in the conception that is highly elevating. +There is something eminently fine in making Chiavari, like the Cities +of the Plain, a monument over its own iniquity. Leave not one stone upon +another of it, and there will be peace in our homes and stillness in our +streets. No more shall the black-bearded tormentor terrorise over Baker +Street, or lord it in the Edgeware Road. + +Commander Snort of the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate +not only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the +inhabitant of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you +will no longer need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here +is what the age especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness +with efficiency. It may be said that we have no more right to destroy +Chiavari than Kagosima, but that question is at least debatable. Are not +the headaches of tens of thousands of more avail than the head of one? +What becomes of that noble principle, the greatest happiness of the +greatest number? The Italians, too, might object: true, but they are +neither Americans nor French. They come into the category of states that +may be bullied. The countries which have an extended seaboard and weak +naval armaments are like people with a large glass frontage and no +shutters. There is nothing to prevent us shying a stone at the Italian +window as we pass up to Constantinople, even though we run away +afterwards. I repeat, therefore, the plan is feasible. As to its +cheapness, it would not cost a tithe of what we spent in destroying the +tea-tray fortifications of Satsuma; and as we have a classic turn for +monuments, a pyramid of barrel-organs in Charing Cross might record to a +late posterity the capture of Chiavari. + +I am not without a certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel +it is a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on +these organ fellows--for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, +the type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our +boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a "Grind" in the world as +Locke King, and his motion for Reform? What do you say to "Rest and be +thankful," and, above all, what to the "Peace-at-any-price people"? + +Is 'Cherry ripe' more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled +on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? +In all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a +Foreign Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against +these. Bring up John Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the +neighbourhood of Birmingham, by insane accusations against his own +country and laudations of America, and I doubt if you could find a +magistrate on the bench to commit him; and will you tell me that the +droning whine of 'Garibaldi's March' is worse than this? As to the +_Civis Romanus_ cant, it is too painful to dwell on, now that we are +derided, ridiculed, and sneered at from Stockholm to Stamboul. Like +Canning's philanthropist, we have been asking every one for his story; +never was there a soul so full of sympathy for sorrow. We have heard the +tale of Italy, the sufferings of the Confederates, the crying wrongs +of Poland, and the still more cruel, because less provoked, trials of +Denmark. We have thrown up hands and eyes--sighed, groaned, wept; we +have even denounced the ill-doers, and said, What a terrible retribution +awaited them! but, like our great prototype, when asked for assistance, +we have said, + +"I'll see you ------ first." + +Let us be merciful, therefore, and think twice before we batter down +Chiavari. The organ nuisance is a bore, no doubt; but what are the most +droning ditties that ever addled a weary head, compared to the tiresome +grind of British moral assistance, and the greatness of that _Civis +Romanus_ who hugs his own importance and helps nobody? + + + + +R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D'INDUSTRIE OF OUR DAY. + +I was struck the other day by an account of an application made to the +Lord Mayor of London by a country clergyman, to give, as a warning to +others, publicity to a letter he had just received from the East. The +clergyman, it seems, had advertised in the 'Times' for pupils, and gave +for address a certain letter of the Greek alphabet. To this address +there came in due time an answer from a gentleman, dated Constantinople, +stating that he was an Anglo-Indian on his way to England, to place +his two sons in an educational establishment; but that having, by +an excursion to Jerusalem, exhausted his immediate resources, he was +obliged to defer the prosecution of his journey till the arrival of some +funds he expected from India--certain to arrive in a month or two. +Not wishing, however, to delay the execution of his project, and being +satisfied with the promises held forth by the advertiser, he purposed +placing his sons under his care, and to do so, desired that forty pounds +might be remitted him at once, to pay his journey to England, for which +convenience he, the writer, would not alone be obliged, but also extend +his patronage to the lender, by recommending him to his friend Sir Hugh +Rose, who was himself desirous of sending his sons to be educated in +England. The address of a banker was given to whom the money should be +remitted, and an immediate reply requested, or "application should be +made in some other quarter." + +Now, the clergyman did not answer this strange appeal, but he inserted +another advertisement, changing, however, the symbol by which he was +to be addressed, and appearing in this way to be a different person. To +this new address there came another letter, perfectly identical in style +and matter: the only change was, that the writer was now at the Htel +de la Reine d'Angleterre at Buda; but all the former pledges of future +protection were renewed, as well as the request for a prompt reply, or +"application will be made in another quarter." + +The clergyman very properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, +with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, +against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The +strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the +offender; nor was there in the 'Times,' or in the other newspapers where +the circumstances were detailed, one single surmise as to the identity +of this ingenious individual. It is the more singular, since this man +is a specialty--an actual personification of some of the very subtlest +rogueries of the age we live in! + +If any of my readers can recall a very remarkable exposure the 'Times' +newspaper made some ten or twelve years ago, of a most shameful fraud +practised upon governesses, by which they were induced to deposit a sum +equivalent to their travelling expenses from England to some town on the +Continent, as a guarantee to the employer, they will have discovered +the gentleman with the two sons to be educated--the traveller in Syria, +the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, the Anglo-Indian who expects eight hundred +pounds in two months, but has a present and pressing necessity for +forty. + +The governess fraud was ingenious. It was done in this way: An +advertisement appeared in the 'Times,' setting forth that an English +gentleman, travelling with his family abroad, wanted a governess--the +conditions liberal, the requirements of a high order. The family +in question, who mixed with the very best society on the Continent, +required that the governess should be a lady of accomplished manners, +and one in every respect qualified for that world of fashion to which +she would be introduced as a member of the advertiser's family. The +advertiser, however, found that all the English ladies who had hitherto +filled this situation in his family had, through the facilities thus +presented them of entrance into life, made very advantageous marriages; +and to protect himself against the loss entailed by the frequent call on +him for travelling expenses--bringing out new candidates for the hands +of princes and grand-dukes--he proposed that the accepted governess +should deposit with him a sum--say fifty pounds--equivalent to the +charge of the journey; and which, if she married, should be confiscated +to the benefit of her employer. + +The scheme was very ingenious; it was, in fact, a lottery in which you +only paid for your ticket when you had drawn a prize. Till the lucky +number turned up, you never parted with your money. Was there ever any +such bribe held forth to a generation of unmarried and marriageable +women? There was everything that could captivate the mind: the tour +on the Continent--the family who loved society and shared it so +generously--the father so parental in his kindness, and who evidently +gave the governess the benediction of a parent on the day she may have +married the count; and all secured for what--for fifty pounds? No; but +for the deposit, the mere storing up of fifty pounds in a strong box; +for if, after two years, the lady neither married nor wished to remain, +she could claim her money and go her way. + +The success was immense; and as the advertiser wrote replies from +different towns to different individuals, governesses arrived at +Brussels, at Coblentz, at Frankfort, at Mayence, at Munich, at Nice--and +heaven knows where besides--whose deposits were lodged in the hands of +N. F. That ingenious gentleman straightway departed, and was no more +seen, and only heard of when the distress and misery of these unhappy +ladies had found their way to the public press. The 'Times,' with all +that ability and energy it knows how to employ, took the matter up, +published some of the statements--very painful and pathetic they +were--of the unfortunate victims of this fraud, and gave more than +one "leader" to its exposure. Nor was the Government wanting in proper +activity. Orders were sent out from the Foreign Office to the different +legations and consulates abroad, to warn the police in the several +districts against the machinations of this artful scoundrel, should he +chance to be in their neighbourhood. Even more distinct instructions +were sent out to certain legations, by which R. N. F. could be arrested +on charges that would at least secure his detention till the law +officers had declared what steps could be taken in his behalf. It was +not the age of photography, but a very accurate description of the +man's appearance and address was furnished, and his lofty stature, +broad chest, burly look, and bushy whiskers--a shade between red and +auburn--were all duly posted in each Chancellerie of the Continent. + +For a while it seemed as if he lived in retirement--his late success +enabled this to be an "elegant retirement"--and it is said that he +passed it on the Lake of Como, in a villa near that of the once Queen +Caroline. There are traditions of a distinguished stranger--a man of +rank and a man of letters--who lived there estranged from all the +world, and deeply engaged in the education of his two sons. One of these +youths, however, not responding to all this parental devotion, involved +himself in some scrape, fled from his father's roof, and escaped into +Switzerland. N. F., as soon as he could rally from the first shock of +the news, hastened after, to bring him back, borrowing a carriage from a +neighbouring nobleman in his haste. With this he crossed the frontier +at Chiasso, but never to come back again. The coachman, indeed, brought +tidings of the sale of the equipage, which the illustrious stranger had +disposed of, thus quitting a neighbourhood he could only associate with +a sorrowful past, and a considerable number of debts into the bargain. +Another blank occurs here in history, which autobiography alone perhaps +could fill. It would be unfair and un-philosophical to suppose that +because we cannot trace him he was inactive: we might as reasonably +imply that the moon ceased to move when we lost sight of her. At all +events, towards the end of autumn of that last year of the war in the +Crimea, a stout, well-dressed, portly man, with an air of considerable +assurance, swaggered into the Chancellerie of her Majesty's Legation at +Munich, notwithstanding the representations of the porter, who would, +if he had dared, have denied him admittance, and asked, in a voice of +authority, if there were no letters there for Captain F. The gentleman +to whom the question was addressed was an attach of the Legation, and +at that time in "charge" of the mission, the Minister being absent. +Though young in years, F. could scarcely, in the length and breadth of +Europe, have fallen upon one with a more thorough insight into every +phase and form of those mysteries by which the F. category of men exist. +Mr L. was an actual amateur in this way, and was no more the man to be +angry with F. for being a swindler, than with Ristori for being Medea or +Macready being Macbeth. Not that he had the slightest suspicion at the +time of F.'s quality, as he assured him that there were no letters for +that name. + +"How provoking!" said the Captain, as he bit his lip. "They will be +so impatient in England," muttered he to himself, "and I know Sidney +Herbert is sure to blame _me_." Then he added aloud, "I am at a +dead-lock here. I have come from the Crimea with despatches, and +expected to find money here to carry me on to England; and these stupid +people at the War Office have forgotten all about it. Is it not enough +to provoke a saint?" + +"I don't know; I never was a saint," said the impassive attach. + +"Well, it's trying to a sinner," said F., with a slight laugh; for +he was one of those happy-natured dogs who are not indifferent to the +absurd side of even their own mishaps. "How long does the post take to +England?" + +"Three days." + +"And three back--that makes six; a week--an entire week." + +"Omitting Sunday," said the grave attach, who really felt an interest +in the other's dilemma. + +"All I can say is, it was no fault of mine," cried F., after a moment. +"If I am detained here through their negligence, they must make the +best excuse they can. Have you got a cigar?" This was said with his eyes +fixed on a roll of Cubans on the table. + +"Take one," said the other. + +"Thanks," said F., as he selected three. "I'll drop in to-morrow, and +hope to have better luck." + +"How much money do you want?" asked Mr L. + +"Enough to carry me to London." + +"How much is that?" + +"Let me see. Strasbourg--Paris, a day at Paris; Cowley might detain me +two days: fifteen or twenty pounds would do it amply." + +"You shall have it." + +"All right," said F., who walked to the fire, and, lighting his cigar, +smoked away; while the other took some notes from a table-drawer and +counted them. + +"Shall I give you a formal receipt for this?" asked F. + +"You can tell them at the Office," said L., as he dipped his pen into +the ink and continued the work he had been previously engaged in. F. +said a few civil words--the offhand gratitude of a man who was fully as +much in the habit of bestowing as of receiving favours, and withdrew. L. +scarcely noticed his departure; he was deep in his despatch, and wrote +on. At length he came to the happy landing-place, that spot of rest for +the weary foot--"I have the honour to be, my Lord," and he arose and +stood at the fire. + +As L. smoked his cigar he reflected, and as he reflected he remembered; +and, to refresh his memory, he took out some papers from a pigeon-hole, +and at last finding what he sought, sat down to read it. The document +was a despatch, dated a couple of years back, instructing H.M.'s +representative at the Court of Munich to secure the person of a certain +N. F., and hold him in durance till application should be made to the +Bavarian Government for his extradition and conveyance to England. Then +followed a very accurate description of the individual--his height, +age, general looks, voice, and manner--every detail of which L. now saw +closely tallied with the appearance of his late visitor. + +He pondered for a while over the paper, and then looked at his watch. It +was five o'clock! The first train to Augsburg was to start at six. There +was little time, consequently, to take the steps necessary to arrest a +person on suspicion; for he should first of all have to communicate +with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who should afterwards back his +application to the Prefect of Police. The case was one for detail, +and for what the Germans insist upon, much writing--and there was very +little time to do it in. L., however, was not one to be easily defeated. + +If baffled in one road, he usually found out another. He therefore +wrote a brief note to the Minister, stating that he might require his +assistance at a later hour of the evening, and at a time not usually +official. This done, he despatched another note to Captain E. F., saying +familiarly it was scarcely worth while trying to catch the mail-train +that night, and that perhaps instead he would come over and take a +_tt--tte_ dinner with him at the Legation. + +F. was overjoyed as he read it! No man ever felt a higher pleasure in +good company, nor knew better how to make it profitable. If he had been +asked to choose, he would infinitely rather have had the invitation to +dine than the twenty pounds he had pocketed in the morning. The cognate +men of the world--and all members of the diplomatic career are to a +certain extent in this category--were in F.'s estimation the "trump +cards" of the pack, with which he could "score tricks" innumerable, and +so he accepted at once; and, in a very few minutes after his acceptance, +made his appearance in a correct dinner-dress and a most unexceptionable +white tie. + +"Couldn't refuse that pleasant offer of yours, L." (he was familiar at +once, and called him L.), "and here I am!" said he, as he threw himself +into an easy-chair with all the bland satisfaction of one who looked +forward to a good dinner and a very enjoyable evening. + +"I am happy to have secured you," said L., with a little laugh to +himself at the epigram of his phrase. "Do you like caviar?" + +"Delight in it!" + +"I have just got some fresh from St Petersburg, and our cook here is +rather successful in his caviar soup. We have a red trout from the +_Tegen See_, a saddle of Tyrol mutton, and a pheasant--_voil votre +diner!_ but I can promise you a more liberal _carte_ in drinkables; just +say what you like in the way of wine!" + +F.'s face beamed over with ecstasy. It was one of the grand moments of +his life; and if he could, hungry as he was, he would have prolonged it! +To be there the guest of her Majesty's mission; to know, to feel, that +the arms of England were over the door! that he was to be waited on +by flunkies in the livery of the Legation, fed by the cook who had +ministered to official palates, his glass filled with wine from +the cellar of him who represented royalty! These were very glorious +imaginings; and little wonder that F., whose whole life was a Poem in +its way, should feel that they almost overcame him. In fact, like the +woman in the nursery song, he was ready to exclaim, "This is none of +me!" but still there were abundant evidences around him that all was +actual, positive, and real. + +"By the way," said L., in a light, careless way, "did you ever in your +wanderings chance upon a namesake of yours, only that he interpolates +another Christian name, and calls himself R. Napoleon F.?" + +The stranger started: the fresh, ruddy glow of his cheek gave way to +a sickly yellow, and, rising from his chair, he said, "Do you mean to +'split' on me, sir?" + +"I'm afraid, F.," said the other, jauntily, "the thing looks ugly. You +are R. N. F.!" + +"And are you, sir, such a scoundrel--such an assassin--as to ask a man +to your table in order to betray him?" + +"These are strong epithets, F., and I'll not discuss them; but if you +ask, Are you going to dine here today? I'd say, No. And if you should +ask, Where are, you likely to pass the evening? I'd hint, In the city +jail." + +At this F. lost all command over himself, and broke out into a torrent +of the wildest abuse. He was strong of epithets, and did not spare +them. He stormed, he swore, he threatened, he vociferated; but L., +imperturbable throughout all, only interposed with an occasional mild +remonstrance--a subdued hint--that his language was less than polite or +parliamentary. At length the door opened, two gendarmes appeared, and N. +F. was consigned to their hands and removed. + +The accusations against him were manifold; from before and since the day +of the governesses, he had been living a life of dishonesty and fraud. +German law proceedings are not characterised by any rash impetuosity; +the initial steps in F.'s case took about eighteen months, during which +he remained a prisoner. At the end of this time the judges discovered +some informality in his committal; and as L. was absent from Munich, +and no one at the Legation much interested in the case, the man was +liberated on signing a declaration--to which Bavarian authorities, +it would seem, attach value--that he was "a rogue and a vagabond;" +confessions which the Captain possibly deemed as absurd an act of +"surplusage" as though he were to give a written declaration that he was +a vertebrated animal and a biped. + +He went forth once more, and, difficult as it appears to the +intelligence of honest and commonplace folk, he went forth to prosper +and live luxuriously--so gullible is the world, so ready and eager to +be cheated and deceived. Sir Edward Lytton has somewhere declared that +a single number of the 'Times' newspaper, taken at random, would be +the very best and most complete picture of our daily life--the fullest +exponent of our notions, wants, wishes, and aspirations. Not a hope, nor +fear, nor prejudice--not a particle of our blind trustfulness, or of our +as blind unbelief, that would not find its reflex in the broadsheet. R. +N. F. had arrived at the same conclusion, only in a more limited sense. +The advertisement columns were all to him. What cared he for foreign +wars, or the state of the Funds? as little did he find interest in +railway intelligence, or "our own correspondent." What he wanted was, +the people who inquired after a missing relative--a long-lost son or +brother, who was supposed to have died in the Mauritius or Mexico: an +affectionate mother who desired tidings as to the burial-place of a +certain James or John, who had been travelling in a particular year in +the south of Spain: an inquirer for the will of Paul somebody: or +any one who could supply evidence as to the marriage of Sarah Meekins +_alias_ Crouther, supposed to have been celebrated before her Majesty's +Vice-Consul at Kooroobakaboo--these were the paragraphs that touched +him. + +Never was there such a union of intelligence and sympathy as in him! He +knew everybody, and seemed not alone to have been known to, but actually +beloved by, every one. It was in _his_ arms poor Joe died at Aden. _He_ +gave away Maria at Tunis. He followed Tom to his grave at Corfu; and he +was the mysterious stranger who, on board the P. and O. boat, offered +his purse to Edward, and was almost offended at being denied. The way in +which this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines +of a newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was +wanting in the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at once +into his attributions. + +A couple of years ago, an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, passed +a winter at Rome with her daughter, and in the mixed society of that +capital made acquaintance with a Polish Count of most charming manners +and fascinating address. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and +ended in an attachment which led to the marriage of the young lady with +the distinguished exile. + +On arriving in England, however, it was discovered that the accomplished +Count was a common soldier, and a deserter from the Prussian army; and +means were accordingly had recourse to in order to obtain a divorce, and +the breach of a marriage accomplished under a fraudulent representation. +While the proceedings were but in the initiative, there came a letter +from Oneglia, near Nice, to the afflicted mother of the young lady, +recalling to her mind the elderly gentleman with the blue spectacles who +usually sat next her at the English Church at Rome. He was the writer of +the present letter, who, in turning over the columns of the 'Times' read +the melancholy story of her daughter's betrayal and misery. By one of +those fortunate accidents more frequent in novels than in life, he had +the means of befriending her, and very probably of rescuing her from +her present calamity. He, the writer, had actually been present at the +wedding, and as a witness had signed the marriage-certificate of that +same _soi-disant_ Count Stanislaus Sobieski Something-or-other, at +Lemberg, in the year '49, and knew that the unhappy but deserted wife +was yet living. A certain momentary pressure of money prevented his +at once coming to England to testify to this fact; but if a small sum, +sufficient to pay a little balance he owed his innkeeper and wherewithal +to make his journey to England, were forwarded to the address of +Frederick Brooks, Esq., or lodged to his account at the Bank of French & +Co., Florence, he would at once hasten to London and depose formally +to every fact he had stated. By the merest accident I myself saw this +letter, which the lady had, for more accurate information about the +writer, sent to the banker at Florence, and in an instant I detected the +fine Roman hand of R. N. F. It is needless to say that this shot went +wide of the mark. + +But that this fellow has lived for upwards of twenty years, travelling +the Continent in every direction, eating and drinking at the best +hotels, frequenting theatres, cafs, and public gardens, denying himself +nothing, is surely a shame and a disgrace to the police of Europe, which +has been usually satisfied to pass him over a frontier, and suffer him +to continue his depredations on the citizens of another state. Of the +obloquy he has brought upon his own country I do not speak. We must, I +take it, have our scoundrels like other people; the only great grievance +here is, that the fellow's ubiquity is such that it is hard to believe +that the swindler who walked off with the five watches from Hamburg is +the same who, in less than eight days afterwards, borrowed fifty ducats +from a waiter at Naples, and "bolted." + +Of late I have observed he has dropped his second _prnom_ of Napoleon, +and does not call himself by it. There is perhaps in this omission a +delicate forbearance, a sense of refined deference to the other bearer +of that name, whom he recognises as his master. + +In the ingenuity of his manifold devices even religion has not escaped +him, and it would be impossible to count how often he has left the +"Establishment" for Rome, been converted, reconverted, reconciled, and +brought home again--always, be it noted, at the special charge of so +much money from the Church Fund, or a subscription from the faithful, +ever zealous and eager to assist a really devout and truly sincere +convert! + +That this man is an aspiring and ambitious vagabond may be seen in the +occasional raids he makes into the very best society, without having, at +least to ordinary eyes, anything to obtain in these ventures, beyond the +triumph of seeing himself where exposure and detection would be +certain to be followed by the most condign punishment. At Rome, for +instance--how, I cannot say--he obtained admission to the Duc de +Grammont's receptions; and at Florence, under the pretext of being +a proprietor, and "a most influential" one, of the 'Times,' he +breakfasted, by special invitation, with Baron Ricasoli, and had a long +and most interesting conversation with him as to the conditions--of +course political--on which he would consent to support Italian unity. +These must have been done in pure levity; they were imaginative +excursions, thrown off in the spirit of those fanciful variations great +violinists will now and then indulge in, as though to say, "Is there a +path too intricate for me to thread, is there a pinnacle too fine for me +to balance on?" + +A great deal of this fellow's long impunity results from the shame men +feel in confessing to have been "done" by him. Nobody likes the avowal, +acknowledging, as it does, a certain defect in discrimination, and a +natural reluctance to own to having been the dupe of one of the most +barefaced and vulgar rogues in Europe. + +There is one circumstance in this case which might open a very curious +psychological question; it is this: F.'s victims have not in general been +the frank, open, free-giving, or trustful class of men; on the contrary, +they have usually been close-fisted, cold, cautious people, who +weigh carefully what they do, and are rarely the dupes of their own +impulsiveness. F. is an Irishman, and yet his successes have been +far more with English--ay, even with Scotchmen--than with his own +countrymen. + +In part this may be accounted for by the fact that F. did not usually +present himself as one in utter want and completely destitute; his +appeal for money was generally made on the ground of some speculation +that was to repay the lender; it was because he knew "something to +your advantage" that he asked for that 10. He addressed himself, in +consequence, to the more mercantile spirit of a richer community--to +those, in fact, who, more conversant with trade, better understood the +meaning of an investment. + +But there was another, and, as I take it, a stronger and less fallible +ground for success. This fellow has, what all Irishmen are more or less +gifted with, an immense amount of vitality, a quality which undeniably +makes a man companionable, however little there may be to our taste in +his manner, his education, or his bearing. This same vitality imparts +itself marvellously to the colder temperaments of others, and gives out +its own warmth to natures that never of themselves felt the glow of an +impulse, or the glorious furnace-heat of a rash action. + +This was the magnetism he worked with. "Canny" Scotchmen and shrewd +Yankees--ay, even Swiss innkeepers--felt the touch of his quality. +There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, in its +apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, and +it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow so open and +unguarded. + +Now Paddy has seen a good deal of this at home, and could no more be +humbugged by it than he could believe a potato to be a truffle. + +F. was too perfect an artist ever to perform in an Irish part to an +Irish audience, and so he owes little or nothing to the land of his +birth. + +Apart from his unquestionable success, which of course settles the +question, I would not have called him a great performer--indeed, my +astonishment has always been how he succeeded, or with whom. + +"Don't tell me of Beresford's blunders," said the Great Duke after +Albuera. "Did he beat Soult? if so, he was a good officer." + +This man's triumphs are some twenty odd years of expensive living, with +occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines +on venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of +the galleys, and his diet the black bread of a convict. + +The injury these men do in life is not confined to the misery their +heartless frauds inflict, for the very humblest and poorest are often +their victims: they do worse, in the way they sow distrust and suspicion +of really deserving objects, in the pretext they afford the miserly man +to draw closer his purse-strings, and "not be imposed on;" and, worst of +all, in the ill repute they spread of a nation which, not attractive by +the graces of manner or the charms of a winning address, yet cherished +the thought that in truthfulness and fair dealing there was not one +could gainsay it. + +As I write, I have just heard tidings of R. N. F. One of our most +distinguished travellers and discoverers, lately returning from Venice +to the South, passed the night at Padua, and met there what he described +as an Indian officer--Major Newton--who was travelling, he said, with a +nephew of Lord Palmer-ston's. + +The Major was a man fall of anecdote, and abounded in knowledge of +people and places; he had apparently been everywhere with everybody, +and, with a communicativeness not always met with in old soldiers, gave +to the stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the +evening wore on, he told too how he was waiting there for a friend, +a certain N. F., who was no other than himself, the nephew of Lord +Palmerston being represented by his son, an apt youth, who has already +given bright promise of what his later years may develop. + +N. F. retired to bed at last, so much overcome by brandy-and-water that +my informant escaped being asked for a loan, which I plainly see he +would not have had the fortitude to have refused; and the following +morning he started so early that N. F., wide awake as he usually is, was +not vigilant enough to have anticipated. + +I hope these brief details, _pour servir l'histoire de Monsieur R. N. +F._, may save some kind-hearted traveller from the designs of a thorough +blackguard, and render his future machinations through the press more +difficult to effect and more certain of exposure. + +I had scarcely finished this brief, imperfect sketch, when I read in +'Galignani' the following:-- + +"Swindling on the Continent.--A letter from Venice of March 29 gives us +the following piece of information which may still be of service to some +of our readers, though, from the fact with which it concludes, it +would seem that the proceedings, of the party have been brought to a +standstill, at least for some time. This is not, however, it may be +recollected, the first occasion we have had to bring the conduct of +the individual referred to under the notice of our readers for similar +practices:-- + +"'I am informed that one Mr Newton, _alias_ Neville, _alias_ Fane, and +with a dozen other _aliases_, has been arrested at Padua for swindling. +This ubiquitous gentleman has been travelling for some years at the +expense of hotel-keepers, and other geese easily fleeced, on the +Continent In the year 1862, Mr Neville and his two sons made their +suspicious appearance at Venice, and they now, minus the younger son, +have visited Padua as Mr Robert N. Newton and son, taking up their +residence at the Stella d'Oro. They arrived without luggage and without +money, both of which had been lost in the Danube; but they expected +remittances from India! The obliging landlord lent money, purchased +clothes, fed them gloriously, and contrived, between the 8th Feb. +and 25th of March, to become the creditor of Newton and son for 1000 +swanzig. The expenses continued, but the remittances never came. +The patient landlord began to lose that virtue, and denounced these +_aliases_ as swindlers. The police of Vienna, hearing of the event, sent +information that these two accommodating gentlemen had practised the +victimising art for two months in December last at the Hotel Regina +Inghilterre, at Pesth, run up a current account of 700 florins, and +decamped; and a hotel-keeper recognised the scamps as having re-resided +at the Luna, in Venice, in 1862, and "plucked some profit from that +pale-faced moon." Mr Newton's handwriting proved him to be in 1863 +one Major Fane, who had generously proposed to bring all his family, +consisting of ten persons, to pass the winter at the Barbesi Hotel at +Venice, if the proprietor would forward him 700 fr., as, owing to his +wife's prolonged residence at Rome and Naples, he was short of money, +which, however, he expected, would cease on the arrival of supplies from +Calcutta. These gentlemen are now in durance vile, and there is no +doubt but that this letter will lead to their recognition by many other +victims.'" + +Let no sanguine enthusiast for the laws of property imagine, however, +that this great man's career is now ended, and that R. N. F. will no +more go forth as of old to plunder and to rob. Imprisonment for debt is +a grievous violation of personal liberty certainly, but it is finite; +and some fine morning, when the lark is carolling high in heaven, and +the bright rivulets are laughing in the gay sunlight, R. N. F. will +issue from his dungeon to taste again the sweets of liberty, and to +partake once more of the fleshpots of some confiding landlord. F. is a +man of great resources, doubtless. When he repeats a part, he feels +the same sort of repugnance that Fechter would to giving a fiftieth +representation of Hamlet, but he would bow to the necessity which a +clamorous public imposes, however his own taste might rebel against the +dreariness of the task. Still, I feel assured that he will next appear +in a new part. We shall hear of him--that is certain. He will be in +search of a lost will, by which he would inherit millions, or a Salvator +Rosa that he has been engaged to buy for the Queen, or perhaps he will +be a missionary to assist in that religious movement now observable in +Italy. How dare I presume, in my narrow inventiveness, to suggest to +such a master of the art as he is? I only know that, whether he comes +before the world as the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, a proprietor of the +'Times,' the agent of Lord Palmerston, or a recent convert from Popery, +he will sustain his part admirably; and that same world that he has +duped, robbed, and swindled for more than a quarter of a century will +still feed and clothe him--still believe in the luggage that never +comes, and the remittance that will never turn up. + +After all, the man must be a greater artist than I was willing to +believe him to be. He must be a deep student of the human heart--not, +perhaps, in its highest moods; and he must well understand how to touch +certain chords which give their response in unlimited confidence and +long credit. + +No doubt there must be some wondrous fascination in these changeful +fortunes--these ups and downs of life--otherwise no man could have +gone, as he has, for nigh thirty years, hunted, badgered, insulted, +and imprisoned in almost every capital of Europe, and yet no sooner +liberated than, like a giant refreshed, he again returns to his old +toil, never weary wherever the bread of idleness can be eaten, and where +a lie will pay for his liquor. + +Talk of novel-writers--this is the great master of fiction--the man who +brings the product of imagination to the real test of credibility--the +actual interest of his public. Let him fail in his description, his +narrative, the progress of his events, or their probability, and he +is ruined at once. He must not alone arrange the circumstances of his +story, but he must perform the hero, and that, too, as we saw lately +at Padua, without any adventitious aid of dress or costume. I can fancy +what a sorry figure some of our popular tale-writers would present if +they had to appeal to an innkeeper with this poor story of their luggage +lost in the Danube. What a contempt the rascal must have had for Italian +notions of geography, too, when he adopted a river so remote from +where he stood! And yet I'd swear he was as cool, as collected, and as +self-sustained at that moment, as ever was Mr Gladstone in the House as +he rose to move a motion of supply. + +Well, he is in Padua now, doubtless dreaming of fresh conquests, and not +impossibly speculating on a world whose gullibility is indeed infinite, +and which actually seems to take the same pleasure in being cheated in +Fact as it does in being deceived in Fiction. Who knows if the time is +not coming when, instead of sending a box of new novels to the country, +some Mr Mudie will despatch one of these R. N. F. folk by a fast +train, with a line to say, "A great success: his Belgian rogueries most +amusing; the exploit at Madrid equal to anything in 'Gil Bias'." + + + + +GRIBLDI + +We had a very witty Judge in Ireland, who was not very scrupulous about +giving hard knocks to his brothers on the bench, and who, in delivering +a judgment in a cause, found that he was to give the casting-vote +between his two colleagues, who were diametrically opposed to each +other, and who had taken great pains to lay down the reasons for their +several opinions at considerable length. "It now comes to my turn," said +he, "to declare my view of this case, and fortunately I can afford to +be brief. I agree with my brother B. from the irresistible force of the +admirable argument of my brother M." + +The story occurred to me as I thought over Garibaldi and the +enthusiastic reception you gave him in England; for I really felt, if it +had not been for Carlyle, I might have been a bit of a hero-worshipper +myself The grand frescoes in caricature of the popular historian have, +however, given me a hearty and wholesome disgust to the whole thing; not +to say that, however enthusiastic a man may feel about his idol, he must +be sorely ashamed of his fellow-worshippers. "Lie down with dogs, and +you'll get up with fleas," says an old Irish adage; but what, in the +name of all entomology, is a man to get up with who lies down with these +votaries of Garibaldi? So fine a fellow, and so mangy a following, it +would be hard to find. The opportunity for all the blatant balderdash +of shopkeeping eloquence, of that high "Falootin" style so popular over +the Atlantic, of those grand-sounding periods about freedom and love +of country, was not to be lost by a set of people who, in all their +enthusiasm for Garibaldi, are intently bent on making themselves +foreground figures in the tableau that should have been filled by +himself alone. + +"Sir Francis Burdett call _you_ his friend!--as well call a Bug his +bedfellow!" said the sturdy old yeoman, whose racy English I should like +to borrow, to characterise the stupid incongruity between Garibaldi and +his worshippers. It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, +more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified, than the man +himself. His noble head; his clear, honest, brown eye; his finely-traced +mouth, beautiful as a woman's, and only strung up to sternness when +anything ignoble or mean had outraged him; and, last of all, his voice +contains a fascination perfectly irresistible, allied, as you knew and +felt these graces were, with a thoroughly pure, untarnished nature. The +true measure of the man lies in the fact that, though his life has been +a series of the boldest and most daring achievements, his courage is +about the very last quality uppermost in your mind when you meet him. +It is of the winning softness of his look and manner, his kind +thoughtfulness for others, his sincere pity for all suffering, his +gentleness, his modesty, his manly sense of brotherhood with the very +humblest of the men who have loved him, that you think: these are the +traits that throw all his heroism into shadow; and all the glory of the +conqueror pales before the simple virtues of the man. + +He never looked to more advantage than in that humble life of Caprera, +where people came and went--some, old and valued friends, whose presence +warmed up their host's heart; others, mere passing acquaintances, or, +as it might be, not even that; worshippers or curiosity-seekers--living +where and how they could in that many-roomed small house; diving into +the kitchen to boil their coffee; sallying out to the garden to pluck +their radishes; down to the brook for a cress, or to the seaside to +catch a fish,--all more or less busy in the midst of a strange +idleness; for there was not--beyond providing for the mere wants of the +day--anything to be done. The soil would not yield anything. There was +no cultivation outside that little garden, where the grand old soldier +delved, or rested on his spade-handle as he turned his gaze over the +sea, doubtless thinking of the dear land beyond it. + +At dinner--and what a strange meal it was--all met, full of the little +incidents of an uneventful day. The veriest trifles they were, but of +interest to those who listened, and to none more than Garibaldi himself, +who liked to hear who had been over to Maddalena, and what sport they +had; or whether Albanesi had taken any mullet, and who it was said he +could mend the boat? and who was to paint her? Not a word was spoken +of the political events of the world, and every mention of them was +as rigidly excluded as though a government spy had been seated at the +table. + +He rarely spoke himself, but was a good listener--not merely hearing +with attention, but showing, by an occasional suggestion or a hint, how +his mind speculated on the subject before him. If, however, led to speak +of himself or his exploits, the unaffected ease and simplicity of the +man became at once evident. Never, by any chance, would an expression +escape him that redounded to his own share in any achievement; +without any studied avoidance the matter would somehow escape, or, if +accidentally touched on, be done so very lightly as to make it appear of +no moment whatever. + +To have done one-tenth of what Garibaldi has done, a man must +necessarily have thrown aside scruples which he would never have +probably transgressed in his ordinary life. He must have been often +arbitrary, and sometimes almost cruel; and yet, ask his followers, and +they will tell you that punishment scarcely existed in the force under +his immediate command--that the most hardened offender would have +quailed more under a few stern words of reproof from "the General" than +from a sentence that sent him to a prison. + +That, to effect his purpose, he would lay hands on what he needed, not +recklessly or indifferently, but thoughtfully and doubtless regretfully, +we all know. I can remember an instance of this kind, related to me by +a British naval officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. "It was +off La Plata," said my informant, "when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, +that the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small +gun-brig of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never harassed his men by +exercises of gunnery, and, indeed, whose ship was as free from any 'beat +to quarters,' or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though +she had been a floating chapel. + +"Garibaldi came alongside me one day to say that he had learned the +Sardinian had several tons of powder on board, with an ample supply +of grape, shell, and canister, not to speak of twelve hundred stand of +admirable arms. 'I want them all,' said he; 'my people are fighting with +staves and knives, and we are totally out of ammunition. I want them, +and he won't let me have them.' + +"'He could scarcely do so,' said I, 'seeing that they belong to his +Government, and are not in _his_ hands to bestow.' + +"'For that reason I must go and take them,' said Garibaldi. 'I mean to +board him this very night, and you'll see if we do not replenish our +powder-flasks.' + +"'In that case,' said I, 'I shall have to fire on you. It will be +Piracy; nothing else.' + +"'You'll not do so;' said he, smiling. + +"'Yes, I promise you that I will. We are at peace and on good terms with +Sardinia, and I cannot behave other than as a friend to her ships of +war.' + +"'There's no help for it, then,' said Garibaldi, 'if you see the thing +in that light:' and good-humouredly quitted the subject, and soon after +took his leave." + +"And were you," asked I of my informant, Captain S.----"were you +perfectly easy after that conversation? I mean, were you fully satisfied +that he would not attempt the matter in some other way?" + +"Never more at ease in my life. I knew my man; and that, having left +me under the conviction he had abandoned the exploit, nothing on earth +would have tempted him to renew it in any shape." + +It might be a matter of great doubt whether any greater intellectual +ability would not have rather detracted from than increased Garibaldi's +power as a popular leader. I myself feel assured that the simplicity, +the trustfulness, the implicit reliance on the goodness of a cause as a +reason for its success, are qualities which no mere mental superiority +could replace in popular estimation. It is actually Love that is +the sentiment the Italians have for him; and I have seen them, +hard-featured, ay, and hard-natured men, moved to tears as the litter +on which Garibaldi lay wounded was carried down to the place of +embarkation. + +Garibaldi has always been a thoughtful, silent, reflective man, not +communicative to others, or in any way expansive; and from these +qualities have come alike his successes and his failures. Of the +conversations reported of him by writers I do not believe a syllable. He +speaks very little; and, luckily for him, that little only with those on +whose integrity he can rely not to repeat him. + +Cavour, who knew men thoroughly, and studied them just as closely as he +studied events, understood at once that Garibaldi was the man he wanted. +He needed one who should move the national heart--who, sprung from the +people himself, and imbued with all the instincts of his class, should +yet not dissever the cause of liberty from the cause of monarchy. To +attach Garibaldi to the throne was no hard task. The King, who led the +van of his army, was an idol made for such worship as Garibaldi's. The +monarch who could carry a knapsack and a heavy rifle over the cliffs +of Monte Rosa from sunrise to sunset, and take his meal of hard bread +before he "turned in" at night in a shepherd's shieling, was a King +after the bold buccaneer's own heart. + +To what end inveigh against the luxuries of a court, its wasteful +splendours, or its costly extravagance, with such an example? This +strong-sinewed, big-boned, unpoetical King has been the hardest nut ever +republicanism had to crack! + +It might be possible to overrate the services Garibaldi has rendered +to Italy--it would be totally impossible to exaggerate those he has +rendered the Monarchy; and out of Garibaldi's devotion to Victor +Emmanuel has sprung that hearty, honest, manly appreciation of the King +which the Italians unquestionably display. A merely political head of +the State, though he were gifted with the highest order of capacity, +would have disappeared altogether from view in the sun-splendour of +Garibaldi's exploits; not so the King Victor Emmanuel, who only shone +the brighter in the reflected blaze of the hero who was so proud to +serve him. + +Yet for all that friendship, and all the acts that grew out of it, +natural and spontaneous as they are, one great mind was needed to guide, +direct, encourage, or restrain. It was Cavour who, behind the scenes, +pulled all the wires; and these heroes--heroes they were too--were but +his puppets. + +Cavour died, and then came Aspromonte. + +If any other man than Garibaldi had taken the present moment to make +a visit--an almost ostentatious visit--to Mazzini, it might be a grave +question how far all the warm enthusiasm of this popular reception could +be justified. Garibaldi is, however, the one man in Europe from whom +no one expects anything but impulsive action. It is in the very +unreflectiveness of his generosity that he is great. There has not been, +I am assured, for many years back, any very close or intimate friendship +between these two men; but it was quite enough that Mazzini was in +trouble and difficulty, to rally to his side that brave-hearted +comrade who never deserted his wounded. Nor is there in all Garibaldi's +character anything finer or more exalted than the steadfast adherence he +has ever shown to his early friendships. No flatteries of the great--no +blandishments of courts and courtiers--none of those seductive +influences which are so apt to weave themselves into a man's nature when +surrounded by continual homage and admiration--not any of these have +corrupted that pure and simple heart; and there is not a presence +so exalted, nor a scene of splendour so imposing, as could prevent +Garibaldi from recognising with eager delight any the very humblest +companion that ever shared hardship and danger beside him. + +To have achieved his successes, a man must of necessity have rallied +around him many besides enthusiasts of the cause; he must have recruited +amongst men of broken fortunes--reckless, lawless fellows, who accepted +the buccaneer's life as a means of wiping off old scores with that old +world "that would have none of them." It was not amidst the orderly, the +soberly-trained, and well-to-do that he could seek for followers. And +what praise is too great for him who could so inspire this mass, heaving +with passion as it was, with his own noble sentiments, and make them +feel that the work before them--a nation's regeneration--was a task too +high and too holy to be accomplished by unclean hands? Can any eulogy +exaggerate the services of a man who could so magnetise his fellow-men +as to associate them at once with his nobility of soul, and elevate them +to a standard little short of his own? That he _did_ do this we have the +proof. Pillage was almost unknown amongst the Garibaldians; and these +famished, ill-clad, shoeless men marched on from battle to battle +with scarcely an instance of crime that called for the interference of +military law. + +Where is the General who could boast of doing as much? Where is the +leader who could be bold enough to give such a pledge for his followers? +Is there an army in Europe--in the world--for whom as much could be +said? + +All honour, therefore, to the man--not whose example only, but whose +very contact suggests high intent and noble action. All honour to +him who brings to a great cause, not alone the dazzling splendour +of heroism, but the more enduring brightness of a pure and unsullied +integrity! + +Such a man may be misled; he can never be corrupted. + + + + +A NEW INVESTMENT. + +I am not so sure how far we ought to be grateful for it, but assuredly +the fact is so, that nothing has so much tended to show the world with +what little wisdom it is governed than the Telegraph. It is not merely +that cabinets are no longer the sole possessors of early intelligence, +though this alone was once a very great privilege; and there is no +over-estimating the power conferred by the exclusive possession of +a piece of important news--a battle won or lost, the outbreak of a +revolution, the overthrow of a throne--even for a few hours before it +became the property of the public. The telegraph, however, is the great +disenchanter. The misty uncertainty, the cloud-like indistinctness that +used of old to envelop all ministerial action, converting Downing +Street into a sort of Olympus, and making a small mythology out of +Precis-writers, is all gone, all dispersed. Three or four cold hard +lines, thin and terse as the wire that conveyed them, are sworn enemies +to all style, and especially to all the evasive cajoleries of those +dissolving views of events diplomacy loves to revel in. What becomes of +the graceful drapery in which statesmen used to clothe the great facts +of the world, when a simple despatch, "fifteen words, exclusive of +the address," tells the whole story? and when we have read that "the +insurgents are triumphant everywhere, the king left the capital at four +o'clock, a provisional government was proclaimed this morning," and +suchlike, what do we care for the sonorous periods in which official +priestcraft chants the downfall of a dynasty? + +The great stronghold of statecraft was, however, Speculation--I mean +that half-prophetic view of events which we always conceded to those +who looked over the world from a higher window than ourselves. What +has become of this now? Who so bold as to predict what, while he is yet +speaking, may be contradicted? who is there hardy enough to forecast +what the events of the last half-hour may have falsified, and five +minutes more will serve to publish to the whole world? + +It may be amusing to read the comments of the speech or the leading +article, but the "despatch" is the substance: and however clever the +variations, the original melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine +to himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of +all its incidents--how insupportable would the slow procession of events +become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort +of Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded +those who differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat +below the "gangway." There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic +devices of those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many +men are their own priests, their lawyers, and their doctors, and where, +certes, each man is his own prophet. + +These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I +took yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our +diplomatists--one of those men who seem to weld into their happy natures +all the qualities which make good companionship, and blend with the +polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep +reflectiveness of a man of the world--a man to whom nothing comes wrong, +and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his element +at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands. + +"I say, O'Dowd," cried he, after a pause of some time in our +conversation, "has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires +are destined to be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within +a very few years neither of our occupations will have a representative +left? Take my word for it," said he, more solemnly, "in less than +ten years from the present date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as +a posthorse, and a post-shay not more a curiosity than a +minister-plenipotentiary." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"I am certain of it. People nowadays won't travel eight miles an hour, +or be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they've happened. Life +is too short for all this now, and, as we can't lengthen our days, we +must shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman +Mathews used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, 'Let me +have some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.' Have you ever +thought seriously on the matter?" + +"Never," said I. + +"You ought, then," said he. "I tell you again, we are all in the same +category with flint locks and wooden ships--we belong to the past. Don't +you know it? Don't you feel it?" + +"I don't like to feel it," said I, peevishly. + +"Nonsense!" cried he, laughing. "Self-deception does nothing in the +matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a 'smooth-Bore.' +What 'our own correspondent' represents, I leave to your own modesty." + +"It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge," +said I, gloomily. + +"Of course it will, but there's no help for it. Old novels go to the +trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-balls in +the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also? +At all events, I have a scheme for our transition state--a plan I have +long revolved in my mind--and there's certainly something in it. + +"First of all realise it, as the Yankees say, that neither a government +nor a public will want either of us. When the wires have told that +the Grand-Duke Strong-grog-enofif was assassinated last night, or that +Prince Damisseisen has divorced his wife and married a milliner, +Downing Street and Printing-house Square will agree that all the moral +reflections the events inspire can be written just as well in Piccadilly +as from a palace on the Neva, or a den on the Danube. Gladstone will be +the better pleased, and take another farthing off 'divi-divi,' or some +other commodity in general use and of universal appreciation. Don't you +agree to that?" + +"I don't know." + +"You don't know," drawled he out, in mimicry of my tone: "are you so +conceited about your paltry craft that you fancy the world cares for the +manner of it, or that there is really any excellence in the cookery? +Not a bit of it, man. We are bores both of us; and what's worse--far +worse--we are bygones. Can't you see that when a man buys a canister +of prepared beef-tea, he never asks any one to pour on the boiling +water--he brews his broth for himself? This is what people do with +the telegrams. They don't want you or me to come in with the kettle: +besides, all tastes are not alike; one man may like his Bombardment of +Charleston weaker; another might prefer his Polish Massacre more highly +flavoured. This is purely a personal matter. How can you suit the +capricious likings of the million, and of the million--for that's the +worst of it--the million that don't want you? What a practical rebuke, +besides, to prosy talkers and the whole long-winded race, the sharp, +short tap of the telegraph! Who would listen to a narrative of Federal +finance when he has read 'Gold at 204--Chase rigged the market'? Who +asks for strategical reasons in presence of 'Almighty whipping--lost +eighty thousand--Fourth Michigan skedaddled '? + +"How graphic will description become--how laconic all comment! You will +no more listen to one of the old circumlocutionary conversers than you +would travel by the waggon, or make a voyage in a collier. + +"How, I would ask, could the business of life go on in an age active as +ours if all coinage was in copper, and vast transactions in money should +be all conducted in the base metal? Imagine the great Kings of Finance +counting over the debts of whole nations in penny-pieces, and you have +at once a picture of what, until a few years ago, was our intellectual +condition. How nobly Demosthenic our table-talk will be!--how grandly +abrupt and forensic! + +"There is nothing, however, over which I rejoice more than in the +utter extinction of the anecdote-mongers--the insufferable monsters +who related Joe Millers as personal experiences, or gave you their own +versions of something in the morning papers. Thank heaven they are done +for! + +"Last of all, the unhappy man who used to be sneered at for his silence +in company, will now be on a par with his fellows. The most bashful will +be able to blurt out, 'Poles massacred,' 'Famine in Ireland,' 'Feast at +the Mansion House,' 'Collision at Croydon,' 'Bank discount eleven.' + +"Who will dare to propagate scandal, when all amplification is denied +him? How much adulteration will the liquor bear which is measured by +drop? Nor will the least of our benefits be the long, reflective +pauses--those brilliant 'flashes of silence' which will supersede the +noise, turmoil, and confusion of what we used to call conversation. No, +no, Corneli mi. The game is up. 'Our own Correspondent' is a piece that +has run its course, and there's nothing to do but take a farewell +benefit and quit the boards." + +"If I could fall back on my pension like you, I'd perhaps take the +matter easier," said I, gruffly. + +"Well, I think you ought to be pensioned. If I was a Minister, I'd +propose it. My notion is this: The proper subjects for pension are those +who, if not provided for by the State, are likely to starve. They are, +consequently, the class of persons who have devoted their lives to +an unmarketable commodity--such as poonah-painting, Berlin-wool work, +despatch-writing, and suchlike. I'd include 'penny-a-lining'--don't be +offended because you get twopence, perhaps. I'd pension the whole of +them--pretty much as I'd buy off the organ-man, and request him to move +on." + +"As, however," said I, "we are not fortunate enough to figure in the +Estimates, may I ask what is the grand scheme you propose for our +employment?" + +"I'm coming to it. I'd have reached it ere this, if you had not required +such a positive demonstration of your utter uselessness. You have +delayed me by what Guizot used to call 'an obstructive indisposition to +believe.'" + +"Go on; I yield--that is, under protest." "Protest as much as you like. +In diplomacy a protest means, 'I hope you won't; but if you will, I +can't help it,' _Vide_ the correspondence about the annexation of Nice +and Savoy. Now to my project. It is to start a monster hotel--one of +those gigantic establishments for which the Americans are famous--in +some much-frequented part of Europe, and to engage as part of the +household all the 'own time' celebrities of diplomacy and letters. Every +one knows--most of us have, indeed, felt--the desire experienced to see, +meet, and converse with the noticeable men of the world--the people who, +so to say, leave their mark on the age they live in--the cognate +signs of human algebra. Only fancy, then, with what ecstasy would the +traveller read the prospectus of an establishment wherein, as in a +pantheon, all the gods were gathered around him. What would not the +Yankee give for a seat at a table where the great Eltchi ladled out the +soup, and the bland-voiced author of 'The Woman in White' lisped out, +'Sherry, sir?' Only imagine being handed one's fish by the envoy +that got us into the Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the +accomplished writer of 'Orley Farm'! Picture a succession of celebrities +in motion around the table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious +sentiment of the man that could say, 'Lyons, a little more fat;' +or, 'Carlyle, madeira;' and imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so +gracefully handed you by 'Lost and Saved,' and the culminating pride of +taking your flat candlestick from the fingers of 'Eleanor's Victory.' + +"Who would not cross the great globe to live in such an atmosphere of +genius and grandeur? for if there be, as there may, souls dead to +the charms of literary greatness, who in this advanced age of ours is +indifferent to the claims of high rank and station and title? Fancy +sending a K.C.B. to call a cab, or ordering a special envoy to fetch the +bootjack! I dare not pursue the theme. I cannot trust myself to dwell +on a subject so imbued with suggestiveness--all the varying and wondrous +combinations such a galaxy of splendour and power would inevitably +produce. What wit, what smartness, what epigram would abound! What +a hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms +and profound reflections! How I see with my mind's eye the literary +traveller trying to overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they +wash up their glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with +a cigar, well knowing his charming article on Dickens. + +"The class-writers would of course have their specialties. +'Soapy-Sponge' would figure in the stable-yard, and 'Proverbial +Philosophy' watch the trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be +obtained for a room in such an establishment, and every place at the +_table-d'hte_ should be five guineas at least. For, after all, +what would be an invitation to Compigne to a sojourn here? Material +advantages might possibly incline to the side of the Imperial board; but +would any one presume to say that the company in the one was equal to +the 'service' at the other? Who would barter the glorious reality of +the first for the mean and shallow mockery of the last? Last of all, how +widespread and powerful would be the influence of such an establishment +over the manners of our time! Would Cockneyism, think you, omit its +H's in presence of that bland individual who offers him cheese? Would +presumption dare to criticise in view of that 'Quarterly' man who is +pouring out the bitter beer? What a check on the expansive balderdash of +the 'gent' at his dessert to know and feel that 'Adam Bede' was behind +him! + +"Would Brown venture on that anecdote of Jones if the napkin-in-hand +listener should be an ex-envoy renowned for his story-telling? Who +would break down in his history, enunciate a false quantity, misquote a +speech, or mistake the speaker, in such hearing? Some one might object +to the position and to the functions I assign to persons of a certain +distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act +as a hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I +confess I do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we +are pleased to call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, +and that the man who feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, +capacity, and attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior +in station and condition, has within his heart a pride all the more +exalting that it is stimulated by the sense of a great injustice, and +the profound consciousness that it is to himself, to his own nature, he +must look to redress the balance that fortune would set against him. + +"In the brilliant conversation of the servants' hall, then, would these +many gifted men take their revenge; and what stores of good stories, +what endless drolleries, what views of life, and what traits of +character, would they derive from the daily opportunities! It has +constantly been remarked by foreigners that there is no trait of +our national manners less graceful in itself than the way in which +inferiors, especially menials, are addressed in England. It is alleged, +perhaps with some truth, that we mark every difference of class more +decisively than other nations; and certainly in our treatment of +servants there is none of that same confidential tone so amusing in a +French vaudeville. The scheme I now suggest will be the effective remedy +for this. + +"Will Jones, think you, presume to be imperative if it be Alfred +Tennyson who has brought up his hot water? Will Brown be critical about +the polish, if it be Owen Meredith has taken him his boots? Will even +Snooks cry out, 'Holloa, you fellow!' to a passing waiter, if the +individual so addressed might chance to be an Oriental Secretary or a +Saturday Reviewer? + +"And would the most infatuated of Bagmen venture on what O'Connell used +to call a 'chuck-under-the-chin manner,' were the chamber-maid to be +Margaret Maitland? + +"Such, in brief, is my plan, O'Dowd; nor is the least of its advantages +that it gets rid of the Pension List, and that beggarly 1200 a-year by +which wealthy England assumes to aid the destitute sons and daughters +of letters. As for myself, I have fixed on my station. I mean to be +swimming-master, and the prospectus shall announce that His Excellency +the late Minister at the Court of-----ducks ladies every morning from +eight till nine. Think over the project, and drop me a hint as to the +sort of place would suit you." + + + + +ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. + +My diplomatic friend is rarely very serious in his humour; this morning, +however, he was rather disposed that way, and so I took the opportunity +to question him about Italy, a country where he has lived long, and +whose people he certainly understands better than most Englishmen. I +gathered from him that he considered the English were thoroughly +well informed on Italy, but in the most hopeless ignorance as to the +Italians. "As for the house and the furniture, you know it all." said +he; "but of the company you know positively nothing." + +Byron understood them better than any other Englishman. He had his +admission _par la petite porte_--that is, he gained his knowledge +through his vices; and the Italians were so flattered to see a great +Milor adapt himself so readily to their lax notions and loose morality +that they grew frank and open with him. + +His pretended--I suppose it was only pretended--dislike to England +disarmed them, too, of all distrust of him; and for the first time they +felt themselves judged by a man who did not think Charing Cross finer +than the Piazza del Popolo. + +Byron's rank and station gained him a ready acceptance where the masses +of our travelling countrymen would not be received; for the Italians +love rank, and respect all its gradations. Even the republics were great +aristocracies; and in all their imitations of France they have never +affected "equality." They love splendour too, and display; and in all +their festivals you see something like an effort to recall a time when +their cities were the grandest and their citizens the proudest in all +Europe. + +They are a very difficult people to understand. There are not so many +salient points in the Italian as in the German or the Frenchman; his +character is not so strongly accented; his traits are finer--his shades +of temperament more delicate. + +Besides this, there is another difficulty: one is immensely aided in +their appreciation of a people by their lighter drama, which is in a +measure a reflex of the daily sayings and doings of those who listen to +it. Now the Italians have no comedy, or next to none; so barren are they +in this respect, that more than once have I asked myself, Can there be +any domesticity in a nation which has not mirrored itself on the stage? +What sort of a substance can that be that never had a shadow? + +The immortal Goldoni, as they print him in all the play-bills, is +ineffably stupid, his characters ill drawn, his plots meagre, and his +dialogue as flat as the talk of a three-volume novel. The only palpable +lesson derivable from him is, that all ranks and classes stand pretty +much on an equality, and that as regards modes of expression the count +and his coachman are precisely on a level. There is scarcely a trait of +humour in these pieces--never, by any accident, anything bordering on +wit. The characters talk the veriest commonplaces, and announce the most +humdrum intentions in phraseology as flat and wearisome. + +Now you will ask, perhaps, Is this a fair type of the present-day +habits--are the Italians of our time like those of Goldoni's? My reply +would be, that it would be difficult to imagine a people who have +changed less within a century. The same small topics, the same petty +interests engage them. They display the same ardent enthusiasm about +trifles, and the same thorough indifference to great things, as their +grandfathers; and they are marvellously like the dreary puppets that the +immortal dramatist has given us as their representatives. + +It has been reproached to Sheridan, that no people in real life ever +displayed such brilliancy in conversation as the characters in the +'School for Scandal;' and tame as Goldoni reads, I verily believe his +dialogue is rather above the level of an Italian salon. + +The great interests of Life, the game of politics, the contests and +reverses of party, literature in its various forms, and the sports of +the field, form topics which make the staple of our dinner-talk. Instead +of these the Italians have their one solitary theme--the lapses of their +neighbours, the scandals of the small world around them. Not that they +are uncharitable or malevolent; far from it. They discuss a frailty as a +board of physicians might a malady, and without the slightest thought of +imputing blame to "the patient." They have now and then a hard word for +an unfortunate husband, but even him they treat rather as one ignorant +of conventional usages and the ways of the polite world, than as a man +radically bad or cruel. + +They have in their blood the old Greek sensitiveness to suffering, +and they dislike painful scenes and disastrous catastrophes; and +this sentiment they carry to extremes. Although they have the finest +representative of Othello--Salvini--at this moment in Europe, the +terrible scene of the murder of Desdemona is a shock that many would +shrink from witnessing. They will bear any strain on the imagination, +but their fine-strung nerves revolt against the terrible in action. +To this natural refinement is owing much of that peculiar softness of +manner and reluctance to disoblige which foreigners frequently mistake +for some especial desire to win their favour. + +The idleness which would make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on +the Italian. He knows how to "do nothing" with dignity. Be assured, if +Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him +down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went through his +tomfoolery gracefully. + +And with all this, is it not strange that these are the people who +furnish the most reckless political enthusiasts of the world, and who, +year after year, go to the scaffold for "an idea"? There is something +hysterical in this Italian nature, which prompts to paroxysms like +these--some of that impulsive fury which, in the hill-tribes of India, +sends down hordes of fanatics to impale themselves on British bayonets. +The men like Orsini abound--calm of look, mild of speech, and gentle in +manner, and yet ready to commit the greatest of crimes and confront the +most terrible of deaths for a mere speculative notion--the possibility +of certain changes producing certain contingencies, and of which other +changes are to ensue, and Italy become something that she never was +before, nor would the rest of Europe suffer her to remain, if ever she +attained to it. + +Wine-tasters tell us it is vain to look for a bottle of unadulterated +port: I should in the same way declare that there are few rarer things +to be found than a purely Italian society. The charm of their glorious +climate; the beauty of their country, the splendour of their cities, +rich in centuries of associations, have attracted strangers from every +corner of the Old World and the New; and the salons of Italy are but +caravanserais, where all nations meet and all tongues are spoken. + +The Italians like this; it flatters national pride, and it suits +national indolence. The outer barbarians from the Neva or the Thames +have fine houses and give costly entertainments. Their sterner looks and +more robust habits are meet subject for the faint little jests that are +bandied in some _patois_; and each thinks himself the superior of his +neighbour. But as for the home life of these people, who has seen +it? What is known of it? Into that long, lofty, arched-ceilinged +drawing-room, lighted by its one lamp, where sits the Signora with +her daughter and the grimy-looking, ill-shaven priest, there is not, +perhaps, much temptation to enter, nor is the conversation of a kind +one would care to join in; and there is but this, and the noisy, almost +riotous, reception after the opera, where a dozen people are contending +at "Lansquenet," while one or perhaps two thump the piano, and some +three or four shout rather than sing the last popular melody of the +season, din being accepted as gaiety, and a clamour that would make +deafness a blessing being taken for the delight of a charmed assembly. + +I have been told that Cavour once said, that no great change would be +accomplished in Italy till the Italians introduced the public-school +system of England. So long as the youth of the country were given up +for education to the priests--the most illiterate, narrow-minded, and +bigoted class in Europe--so long would they carry with them through life +the petty prejudices of their early days; or, in emancipating themselves +from these, fall into a scepticism whose baneful distrust would damp +the ardour of all patriotism, and sap the strength of every high and +generous emulation. As the great statesman said, "I want Italians to be +Italians, and not to be bad Frenchmen." + +With a Peninsular Eton or Rugby at work, who is to say what might not +come of a people whose intellectual qualities are unquestionably +so great? The system which imparts to boys the honourable sense of +responsibility, the high value of truthfulness, the scorn of all that is +mean,--this is what is wanting here. Let the Italian start in life with +these, and it would not be easy to set limits to what his country may +become in greatness. + +I have never heard of a people with so little self-control; and their +crimes are, in a large majority of cases, the results of some passionate +impulse rather than of a matured determination to do wrong. It is by no +means uncommon to find that your butler or your coachman has taken to +his bed ill of a _rabbia_, as they call it--a fit of passion, in plain +words, brought on by a reproof he has considered unjust. This same +_rabbia_ is occasionally a serious affair. Some short time ago, an +actor, who was hissed off the stage at Turin, went home and died of it; +and within a very few weeks, a case occurred in Florence which would +be laughable if it had not terminated so tragically. One of the new +guardians of the public safety, habited in a strange travestie of an +English police-costume, was followed through the streets by a crowd of +boys, who mocked and jeered him on his dress. Seeing that he resented +their remarks with temper, they only became more aggressive, and at last +went so far as to pursue him through the city with yells and cries. The +man, overcome with passion, got _rabbia_, and died. Ridicule is the one +thing no Italian can bear. When you lose temper with an Italian, and +give way to any show of violence before him, he is triumphant; his cheek +glows, his eye brightens, his chest expands, he sees he has you at a +disadvantage, and regards you as one who in a moment of passion has +thrown his cards on the table and exposed his hand. After this it is +next to impossible to regain your position before him. If you be +calm, however, and if, besides being calm, you can be sarcastic, he is +overcome at once. + +It is a rare thing--one of the rarest--to see this weapon employed in +the debates; but when it does occur, it is ever successful. The fact +is, that Wit, which forms the subtlety of other nations, is not subtle +enough for the Italian; and the edge that cuts so cleanly elsewhere +makes a jagged wound with them. + +After all, they are very easy to live with. If the social atmosphere +is not very stimulating or invigorating, it is easy to breathe, and +pleasant withal; and one trait of theirs is not without its especial +merit--they are less under the control of conventionalities than any +people I ever heard of, and consequently have few affectations. If they +do assume any little part, or play off any little game, it is with the +palpable object of a distinct gain by it; never is it done for personal +display or individual glory. There are no more snobs in Italy than +there are snakes in Iceland; and that, after all, is, as the world goes, +saying something for a people. + +Of all the nations of Europe, I know of none, save Italy, in which the +characters are the same in every class and gradation. The appeal you +would make to the Italian noble must be the same you would address to +the humble peasant on his property. The point of view is invariably +identical; the sympathies are always alike. No matter what differences +education may have instituted and habits implanted, the nobleman and his +lackey think and feel and reason alike. Separate them how you will in +station, and they will still approach the consideration of any subject +in the same spirit, and regard it with the same hopes and fears, the +same expectations and distrusts. To this trait, of whose existence +Cavour well knew, was owing the marvellous unanimity in the nation on +the last war with Austria. The appeal to the prince could be addressed, +and was addressed, to the peasant. There was not an argument that spoke +to the one which was not re-echoed in the heart of the other. In fact, +the chain that binds the social condition of Italy is shorter than +elsewhere, and the extreme links are less remote from each other than +with most nations of Europe. + +Every Italian is a conspirator, whether the question be the gravest +or the lightest; all must be done in it ambiguously--secretly-- +mysteriously. Whatever is conducted openly is deemed to be done +stupidly. To take a house, buy a horse, or hire a servant without the +intervention of another man to disparage the article, chaffer over the +price, and disgust the vendor, is an act of impetuous folly. "Why didn't +you tell _me!_" says your friend, "that you wished to have that villa? +My coachman is half-brother to the wife of the _fattore_. I could have +learned everything that could be urged against its convenience, and +learned, besides, what peculiar pressure for money affected the owner." +Besides this, everything must be done as though by mere hazard: you +really never knew there was a house there, never noticed it; you even +sneer at the taste of the man who selected the spot, and wonder "what he +meant by it." In nine cases out of ten the other party is not deceived +by this skirmishing; he fires a little blank-cartridge too, and so goes +on the engagement. All have great patience; life, at least in Italy, is +quite long enough for all this; no one is overburdened with business; +the days are usually wearisome, and the theatres are only open of an +evening! + +It is, besides, so pleasant and so interesting to the Italian to pit +his craft against another man's, and back his own subtlety against his +neighbour's. It is a sort of gambling of which he never wearies; for +the game is one that demands not merely tact, address, and cunning, +but face, voice, manner, and bearing. It is temperament. Individuality +itself is on the table; and so is it, that you may assume it as certain +that the higher organisation will invariably rise the winner. + +Imagine Bull in such a combat, and you have a picture of the most +hopeless incapacity. He frets, fumes, storms, and sulks; but what avails +it? he is "done" in the end; but he is no more aware that the struggle +he has been engaged in is an intellectual one, than was the Bourgeois +Gentilhomme conscious that he had been for forty years "talking prose." + +The Priest was doubtless the great originator of all this mechanism +of secrecy and fraud. For centuries the Church has been the Tyrant of +Italy. The whole fate and fortunes of families depended on the will of +a poor, ill-clad, ignoble-looking creature, who, though he sat at meals +with the master, ate and talked like a menial. To this man was known +everything--all that passed beneath the roof. Not alone was he aware of +the difficulties, the debts, the embarrassments of the family, but to +him were confided their feelings, their shortcomings, their sorrows, and +it might be their shame. From him there was nothing secret; and he sat +there, in the midst of them, a sort of Fate, wielding the power of one +who knew every spring and motive that could stir them, every hope that +could thrill, every terror that could appal them. There was no escape +from him--cold, impassive spectator of good or evil fortune, without one +affection to attach him to life, grimly watching the play of passions +which made men his slaves, and only interested by the exercise of a +power that degraded them. The layman could not outwit him, it is true, +but he could steal something of the craft that he could not rival. This +he has done; how he has employed it any one can at least imagine who has +had dealings in Italy. + + + + +THE DECLINE OF WHIST. + +What is the reason of the decline of Whist? Why is it that every year we +find fewer players, and less proficiency in those who play? It is a far +graver question than it may seem at first blush, and demands an amount +of investigation much deeper than I am able to give it here. + +Of course I am prepared to hear that people nowadays are too +accomplished and too intellectual to be obliged to descend for their +pastime to a mere game at cards; that higher topics engage and higher +interests occupy them; that they read and reflect more than their +fathers and grandfathers did; and that they would look down with disdain +upon an intellectual combat where the gladiators might be the last +surviving veterans of a bygone century. + +Now, if the conversational tone of our time were pre-eminently +brilliant--if people were wiser, wittier, more amusing, and more +instructive than formerly--if we lived in an age of really good +talkers,--I might assent to the force of this explanation; but what is +the truth? Ours is, of all the times recorded by history, the dullest +and dreariest: rare as whist-players are, pleasant people are still +rarer. It is not merely that the power of entertaining is gone, but so +has the ambition. Nobody tries to please, and the success is admirable! +It is fashionable to be stupid, and we are the most modish people in the +universe. It is absurd, then, in a society whose interchange of thought +is expressed in monosyllables, and a certain haw-haw dreariness pervades +all intercourse, to say that people are above Whist. Why, they are below +Push-pin! + +It would be sufficient to point to the age when Whist was most in vogue, +to show that it flavoured a society second to none in agreeability; and +who were the players? The most eminent divines, the greatest ministers, +the most profound jurists, the most subtle diplomatists. What an +influence a game so abounding in intellectual teaching must have +exercised on the society where it prevailed, can scarcely be computed. +Blackstone has a very remarkable passage on the great social effect +produced upon the Romans by their popular games; and he goes so far as +to say that society imbibes a vast amount of those conventionalities +which form its laws, from an Tin-conscious imitation of the rules which +govern its pastimes. Take our own time, and I ask with confidence, +should we find such want of purpose as our public men exhibit, such +uncertainty, such feebleness, and such defective allegiance to party, +in a whist-playing age? Would men be so ready as we see them to renounce +their principles, if they bore fresh in their mind all the obloquy that +follows "a revoke"? Would they misquote their statistics in face of the +shame that attends on "a false score"? Would they be so ready to assert +what they know they must retract, if they had a recent recollection of +being called on "to take down the honours"? + +Think, then, of the varied lessons--moral as well as mental--that the +game instils; the caution, the reserve, the patient attention, the +memory, the deep calculation of probabilities, embracing all the rules +of evidence, the calm self-reliance, and the vigorous daring that shows +when what seems even rashness may be the safest of all expedients. +Imagine the daily practice of these gifts and faculties, and tell me, +if you can, that he who exercises them can cease to employ them in his +everyday life. You might as well assert that the practice of gymnastics +neither develops the muscle nor increases strength. + +I cannot believe a great public man to have attained a fall development +of his power if he has not been a whist-player; and for a leader of the +House, it is an absolute necessity. Take a glance for a moment at what +goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. +Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his +party that unhappy man is, who _will_ ask a question to-day which this +day week would be unanswerable. What is that but "playing his card out +of time"? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the +unlucky "something" being the key-note to his party's politics which +he has thus disclosed. What is this but "showing his hand"? Hear that +dreary blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has +just asserted--"trumping," as it were, "his partner's trick." Or that +still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken "the +lead out of the hand" that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would +there be one--even one--of these solecisms committed in an age when +Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and +practice of the odd trick? + +Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston "forces the hand" of +the Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon +the card Lord Russell has let drop, and "calls on him to play it." And +in the face of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered +creatures Leech gives us in 'Punch,' who, if asked, "Can they play?" +answer with a contemptuous ha-ha laugh, "I rather think not." + +To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude +occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand's +sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable +advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down +in that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and +brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era. +By what other agency--through what fortuitous combination of events +other than the game--could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How +could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual +intimacy? + +It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this +situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do +not possess--any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest +inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical +of those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries +of this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in +the lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance. +Not one of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet +he was a good player: too venturous, perhaps--too dashing--but splendid +with "a strong hand!" During all the sittings of the Paris Congress he +played every night at the Jockey Club, and won very largely--some say +above twenty thousand pounds. + +The late Prince Metternich played well, but not brilliantly. It was a +patient, cautious, back-game, and never fully developed till the last +card was played. He grew easily tired too, and very seldom could sit +out more than twelve or fourteen rubbers; unlike Talleyrand, who always +arose from table, after perhaps twelve hours' play, fresher and brighter +than when he began. Lord Melbourne played well, but had moments of +distraction, when he suffered the smaller interests of politics to +interfere with his combinations. I single him out, however, as a +graceful compliment to a party who have numbered few good players in +their ranks; for certainly the Tories could quote folly ten to +one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs are too superficial, too +crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be whist-players; and, worse than +all, too distrustful. A Whig could never trust his partner--he could not +for a moment disabuse himself of the notion that his colleague meant to +outwit him. A Whig, too, would invariably try to win by something +not perfectly legitimate; and, last of all, he would be incessantly +appealing to the bystanders, and asking if he had not, even if +egregiously beaten, played better than his opponents. + +The late Cabinet of Lord Derby contained some good players. Two of the +Secretaries of State were actually fine players, and one of them adds +Whist to accomplishments which would have made their possessor an +Admirable Crichton, if genius had not elevated him into a far loftier +category than Crichtons belong to. Rechberg plays well, and likes +his game; but he is in Whist, as are all Germans, a thorough pedant. I +remember an incident of his whist-life sufficiently amusing in its way, +though, in relation, the reader loses what to myself is certainly the +whole pungency of the story: I mean the character and nature of the +person who imparted the anecdote to me, and who is about the most +perfect specimen of that self-possession, which we call coolness, the +age we live in can boast of. + +I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in +many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the +requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which +make of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that +walks the earth. + +I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. "I used to +play a good deal with Rechberg," said he, "and took pleasure in worrying +him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with +anything that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each +game was followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense +mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and +offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian. + +"One evening, after a number of these discussions, in which Rechberg +had displayed an even unusual warmth and irritability, I found myself +opposed to him in a game, the interest of which had drawn around us a +large assembly of spectators--what the French designate as _la galerie_. +Towards the conclusion of the game it was my turn to lead, and I played +a card which so astounded the Austrian Minister, that he laid down his +cards upon the table and stared fixedly at me. + +"'In all my experience of Whist,' said he, deliberately, 'I never saw +the equal of that.' + +"'Of what?' asked! + +"'Of the card you have just played,' rejoined he. 'It is not merely +that such play violates every principle of the game, but it actually +stultifies all your own combinations.' + +"'I think differently, Count,' said I. 'I maintain that it is good play, +and I abide by it.' + +"'Let us decide it by a wager,' said he. + +"'In what way?' + +"'Thus: We shall leave the question to the _galerie_. You shall allege +what you deem to be the reasons for your play, and they shall decide if +they accept them as valid.' + +"'I agree. What will you bet?' + +"'Ten napoleons--twenty, fifty, five hundred if you like!' cried he, +warmly. + +"'I shall say ten. You don't like losing, and I don't want to punish you +too heavily.' + +"'There is the jury, sir,' said he, haughtily; 'make your case.' + +"'The wager is this,' said I, 'that, to win, I shall satisfy these +gentlemen that for the card I played I had a sufficient and good +reason.' + +"'Yes.' + +"'My reason was this, then--I looked into your hand!' + +"I pocketed his ten napoleons, but they were the last I won of him. +Indeed, it took a month before he got over the shock." + +It would be interesting if we had, which unhappily we have not, any +statistical returns to show what classes and professions have produced +the best whist-players. In my own experience I have found civilians the +superiors of the military. + +Diplomatists I should rank first; their game was not alone finer and +more subtle, but they showed a recuperative power in their play +which others rarely possessed: they extricated themselves well out of +difficulties, and always made their losses as small as possible. Where +they broke down was when they were linked with a bad partner: they +invariably played on a level which he could never attain to, and in this +way cross purposes and misunderstandings were certain to ensue. + +Lawyers, as a class, play well; but their great fault is, they play +too much for the _galerie_. The habit of appealing to the jury jags +and blurs the finer edge of their faculties, and they are more prone to +canvass the suffrages of the surrounders than to address themselves to +the actual issue. For this reason, Equity practitioners are superior to +the men in the courts below. + +Physicians are seldom first-rate players--they are always behind their +age in Whist, and rarely, if ever, know any of the fine points which +Frenchmen have introduced into the game. Their play, too, is timid--they +regard trumps as powerful stimulants, and only administer them in +drop-doses. They seldom look at the game as a great whole, but play on, +card after card, deeming each trick they turn as a patient disposed of, +and not in any way connected with what has preceded or is to follow it. + +Divines are in Whist pretty much where geology was in the time of the +first Georges; still I have met with a bishop and a stray archdeacon or +two who could hold their own. I am speaking here of the Establishment, +because in Catholic countries the higher clergy are very often good +players. Antonelli, for instance, might sit down at the Portland or the +Turf; and even my old friend G. P. would find that his Eminence was his +match. + +Soldiers are sorry performers, for mess-play is invariably bad; but +sailors are infinitely worse. They have but one notion, which is to play +out all the best cards as fast as they can, and then appeal to their +partner to score as many tricks as they have--an inhuman performance, +which I have no doubt has cost many apoplexies. + +On the whole, Frenchmen are better players than we are. Their game is +less easily divined, and all their intimations (_invites_) more subtle +and more refined. The Emperor plays well. In England he played a great +deal at the late Lord Eglinton's, though he was never the equal of +that accomplished Earl, whose mastery of all games, especially those of +address, was perfection. + +The Irish have a few brilliant players--one of them is on the bench; but +the Scotch are the most winning of all British whisters. The Americans +are rarely first-rate, but they have a large number of good second-class +players. Even with them, however, Whist is on the decline; and Euchre +and Poker, and a score more of other similar abominations, have usurped +the place of the king of games. What is to be done to arrest the +progress of this indifferentism?--how are we to awaken men out of the +stupor of this apathy? Have they never heard of the terrible warning +of Talleyrand to his friend who could not play, as he said, "Have you +reflected on the miserable old age that awaits you?" How much of human +nature that would otherwise be unprofitable can be made available by +Whist! What scores of tiresome old twaddlers are there who can still +serve their country as whisters! what feeble intelligences that can +flicker out into a passing brightness at the sight of the "turned +trump"! + +Think of this, and think what is to become of us when the old, the +feeble, the tiresome, and the interminable will all be thrown broadcast +over society without an object or an occupation. Imagine what Bores will +be let loose upon the world, and fancy how feeble will be all efforts +of wit or pleasantry to season a mass of such incapables! Think, I say, +think of this. It is a peril that has been long threatening--even +from that time when old Lord Hertford, baffled and discouraged by +the invariable reply, "I regret, my Lord, that I cannot play Whist," +exclaimed, "I really believe that the day is not distant when no +gentleman can have a vice that requires more than two people!" + + + + +ONE OF OUR "TWO PUZZLES". + +The two puzzles of our era are, how to employ our women, and what to do +with our convicts; and how little soever gallant it may seem to place +them in collocation, there is a bond that unites the attempt to keep the +good in virtue with the desire to reform the bad from vice, which will +save me from any imputation of deficient delicacy. + +Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has +been expended in devising occupations where female labour might be +advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more +delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men. +Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph, +have been freely opened--and, I believe, very successfully--to female +skill; and scores of other callings have been also placed at their +disposal: but, strange enough, the more that we do, the more there +remains to be done; and never have the professed advocates of woman's +rights been so loud in their demands as since we have shared with them +many of what we used to regard as the especial fields of man's industry. +Women have taken to the practice of Medicine, and have threatened to +invade the Bar--steps doubtless anticipatory of the time when they shall +"rise in the House" or sit on the Treasury benches. Now, I have very +little doubt that we used not to be as liberal as we might in sharing +our callings with women. We had got into the habit of underrating their +capacities, and disparaging their fitness for labour, which was very +illiberal; but let us take care that the reaction does not cany us too +far on the other side, and that in our zeal to make a reparation we only +make a blunder, and that we encourage them to adopt careers and crafts +totally unsuited to their tastes and their powers. + +It is quite clear--in fact, a mere glance at the detail of the +preliminary studies will suffice to show it--that medicine and surgery +should not be shared with them. For a variety of reasons, they ought +not to be encouraged to take holy orders; and, on the whole, it is very +doubtful if it would be a wise step to introduce them into the army, +much less into the navy. Seeing this, therefore, the question +naturally arises, Are women to be the mere drudges--the Helots of our +civilisation? Are we only to employ them in such humble callings as +exclude all ideas of future distinction? A very serious question this, +and one over which I pondered for more than half an hour last night, as +I lay under the influence of some very strong tea and a slight menace of +gout. + +Women are very haughty creatures--very resentful of any supposed +slight--very aggressive, besides, if they imagine the time for attack +favourable. Will they sit down patiently as makers of pill-boxes and +artificial flowers? Will they be satisfied with their small gains and +smaller consideration? Will there not be ambitious spirits amongst +them who will ask, What do you mean to offer us? We are of a class who +neither care to bind books nor draw patterns. We are your equals--if +we were not distinctively modest, we might say something more than +your equals--in acquirement and information. We have our smattering +of physical-science humbug, as you have; we are read up in theological +disputation, and are as ready as you to stand by Colenso against Moses; +in modern languages we are more than your match. What have you to offer +us if we are too proud, or too poor, or too anything else, to stand +waiting for a buyer in the marriage-market of Belgravia? You will not +suffer us to enter the learned professions nor the Service; you will not +encourage us to be architects, attorneys, land-agents, or engineers. We +know and we feel that there is not one of these callings either above +our capacity or unsuited to our habits, but you deny us admittance; and +now we ask, What is your scheme for our employment? what project have +you that may point out to us a future of independence and a station of +respect? Have you such a plan? or, failing it, have you the courage to +proclaim to the world that all your boasted civilisation can offer us +is to become the governesses to the children of our luckier sisters? But +there are many of us totally unsuited to this, brought up with ways +and habits that would make such an existence something very like penal +servitude--what will you do with us? + +With this cry--for it became a cry--in my ears, I tried to go asleep. +I counted seventeen hundred and forty-four; I thought of the sea; I +imagined I was listening to Dr Cumming; and I endeavoured to repeat +a distich of Martin Tupper: but the force of conscience and the congo +carried the day, and I addressed myself vigorously to the question. +I thought of making them missionaries, lighthouse-keepers, lunacy +commissioners, Garter Kings-at-Arms, and suchlike, when a brilliant +thought flashed across my brain, and, with the instinct of a great +success, I saw I had triumphed. "Yes," cried I aloud, "there is one +grand career for women--a career which shall engage not alone all the +higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call +forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their +tact, their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually +employ the less commendable features of female nature, and find work for +their powers of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion +for intrigue. How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for +of all the careers meant by nature for women, was there any one could +compare with Diplomacy!" + +Here we have at once the long-sought-for career--the _desideratum tanti +studii_--the occupation for which men are too coarse, too clumsy, too +inept, and which requires the lighter touch and more delicate treatment +of female fingers. It is the everyday reproach heard of us abroad, that +our representatives are deficient in those smaller and nicer traits by +which irritations are avoided and unpleasant situations relieved. John, +they say, always imagines that to be national he must be "Bull," and +toss on his horns "all and every" that opposes him. Now, late events +might have disabused foreign cabinets on this score: a quieter beast +than he has shown himself need not be wished for. Still, he has +bellowed, and lashed his tail, and cut a few absurd capers, to show +what he would be at if provoked; but the world has grown too wise to be +terrified by such exhibitions, and quietly settled down to the opinion +that there is nothing to fear from him. Now, how very differently might +all this have been if the Duchess of S. were Ambassador at Paris, and +the Countess of C. at St Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would +have been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying--none of that blundering +about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress "ought to follow +a war," and proposing one to-morrow, "to prevent a war." Women despise +logic, and consequently would not stultify it. A temperance apostle is +not likely to adulterate the liquor that he does not drink; and for +this reason, female intelligence would have escaped this "muddle." Her +Ladyship would have thrown her blandishments over Rechberg--he is now +of the age when men are easy victims--all the little cajoleries and +flatteries of women's art would have been exerted first to find out, and +then to thwart, his policy. It is notorious that English diplomacy knows +next to nothing through secret agency. Would such be the case if we had +women as envoys? What mystery would stand the assault of a fine lady, +trained and practised by the habits of her daily life? + +They tell us that our fox-hunters would form the finest scout-cavalry +in Europe; and I am convinced that a London leader of fashion--I have a +dozen in my eye at this moment--would track an intrigue through all its +stages, and learn its intimate details of place and time and agency, +weeks before a merely male intelligence began to suspect the thing was +possible. + +Imagine what a blue-book would be in these times--would there be +any reading could compare with it? We used to admire a certain +diplomatist--a pleasant narrator of court gossip--giving, as he did, +little traits of Kings and Kaisers, and telling us the way in which +majesty was graciously pleased to blow his royal nose. Imagine a female +pen engaged on such themes! What clever and sharp little touches would +reveal the whole tone of a "reception"! We should not be told "His +Majesty received me coldly," but we would have a beautiful analysis +of the royal mind in all its varied moods of displeasure, concealment, +urbanity, reserve, and deception. Compared with the male version of the +same incident, it would be like Faraday's report on a case of supposed +poisoning beside the blundering narrative of a country apothecary! + +It is a long time--a very long time--before an old country has energy +enough to throw off any of its accustomed ways. It requires the vigorous +assault of young and sturdy intelligences, and, above all, immense +persistence, to effect it. + +Light comes very slowly indeed through the fog of centuries' growth, and +there is hope always when even the faintest flicker of a ray pierces the +Boeotian cloud. Now, for some years back, it may have been remarked that +a sort of suspicion has been breaking on the minds of our rulers, that +the finer, the higher, and subtler organisations of women might find +their suitable sphere of occupation in the diplomatic service. + +"I don't speak German, but I play the German flute," said the apologetic +gentleman; and so might we say. We don't engage ladies in diplomacy, +but we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a +well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine +clothes and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, and heart and soul +devoted to royalties, we promote him. If he speak French tolerably, we +make him a Minister; if he be fluent, an Envoy Extraordinary. + +I remember an old medical lecturer in Dublin formerly, who used to hold +forth on the Materia Medica in the hall of the University, and who, +seeing a "student" whose studies had been for some time before pursued +in Germany, appear in the lecture-room, with a note-book and pen to take +down the lecture-- + +"Tell that young gentleman," said the Professor, "to put up his writing +materials, for there's not one word he'll hear from me that he'll not +find in the oldest editions of the 'Dublin Pharmacopoeia.'" In the same +spirit our diplomatists may sneer at the call for blue-books. We have +all of us had the whole thing already in the 'Times;' and why? Because +we choose to employ unsuitable tools. We want to shave with a hatchet +instead of a razor; for be it remarked, as no things are so essentially +unlike as those that have a certain resemblance, there is nothing in +nature so remote from the truly feminine finesse as the mind of a male +"old woman." + +It is simply to the flaws and failures of female intelligence that the +parallel applies. A very pleasant old parson, whom I knew when I was a +boy, and who used to discourse to me much about Edmund Burke and Gavin +Hamilton, told me once that he met old Primate Stewart one day returning +from a visitation, and turned his horse round to accompany the carriage +for some distance. "Doctor G.," said the Archbishop, "you remind me most +strikingly of my friend Paley." + +"Oh, my Lord, it is too much honour: I have not the shadow of a +pretension to such distinction." + +"Well, sir, it is true; I have Paley before me as I look at you." + +"I am overwhelmed by your Lordship's flattery." + +"Yes, sir; Paley rode just such another broken-down old grey nag as +that." + +Do not therefore disparage my plan for the employment of women in +diplomacy by any ungenerous comparisons with the elderly ladies at +present engaged in it. This would be as unfair as it is ungallant. + +There are a variety of minor considerations which I might press into the +cause, but some of them would appeal less to the general mind than to +the official, and I omit them--merely observing what facilities it would +give for the despatch of business, if the Minister, besieged, as he +often now is, by lady-applicants for a husband's promotion, instead of +the tedious inquiry, "Who is Mr D.?--where has he been?--what has he +done?--what is he capable of?" could simply say, "Make Mrs T. Third +Secretary at Stuttgart, and send Mrs O'Dowd as Vice-Consul to Simoom!" + + + + +A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. + +It is no small privilege to you "gentlemen of England who live at home +at ease," or otherwise, that you cannot hear how the whole Continent is +talking of you at this moment. We have, as a nation, no small share of +self-sufficiency and self-esteem. If we do not thank God for it, we are +right well pleased to know that we are not like that Publican there, +"who eats garlic, or carries a stiletto, or knouts his servants, or +indulges in any other taste or pastime of 'the confounded foreigner.'" +The 'Times' proclaims how infinitely superior we are every morning; and +each traveller--John Murray in hand--expounds in his bad French, that +an Englishman is the only European native brought up in the knowledge of +truth and the wash-tub. + +By dint of time, iteration, and a considerable amount of that same +French I speak of, an article expressly manufactured for exportation, we +really did at last persuade patient and suffering Europe to take us +at our own valuation. We got them to believe that--with certain little +peculiarities, certain lesser vices, rather amiable than otherwise--no +nation, ancient or modern, could approach us. That we were at one and +the same time the richest, the strongest, the most honourable, the +most courageous people recorded in history; and not alone this, but the +politest and the most conciliatory, with the largest coal-fields and +the best cookery in Europe. Now, there is nothing more damaging than the +witness who proves too much. Miss Edgeworth tells us somewhere, I +think, of an Irish peer who, travelling in France with a negro servant, +directed him, if questioned on the subject, always to say his master was +a Frenchman. He was punctiliously faithful to his orders; but whenever +he said, "My massa a Frenchman," he always added, "So am I." + +In the same spirit has Bull gone and damaged himself abroad. He might +have enjoyed an unlimited credit for his stories of English wealth and +greatness--how big was our fleet, and how bitter our beer; he might have +rung the changes over our just pride in our insular position and +our income-tax, and none dared to dispute him; but when, in the warm +expansiveness of his enthusiasm, he proceeded to say, not merely that we +dressed better and dined better than the foreigner, but that our manners +were more polished, our address more insinuating, and the amiability +of our whole social tone more conspicuous, "Mossoo," taking him to +represent all from Stockholm to Sicily, began to examine for himself, +and after some hesitation to ask, "What if the wealth be only like +the politeness? What if the national character be about as rude as the +cookery? What if English morality turn out to be a jumble and confusion, +very like English-French? Who is to tell us that the coal-fields may not +be as easily exhausted as the civility?" These were very ugly doubts, +and for some years back foreigners, after that slow fashion in which +public opinion moves amongst them, have been turning them over and over, +but in a manner that showed a great revulsion had taken place on the +Continent with regard to the estimate of England. + +A nation usually judges another nation by the individuals and by the +Government. Now it is no calumny to say that, taking them _en masse_, +the English who travel abroad, whether it be from indifference, from +indolence, from a rooted confidence in their own superiority, or +from some defect in character, neither win favour for themselves, nor +affection for their country from foreigners. So long as we were looked +upon, however, as colossal in wealth and power, a certain rude and +abrupt demeanour was taken as the type of a people too practical to +be polished. It grew to be thought that intense activity and untiring +energy had no time to bestow on mere forms. When, however, a suspicion +began to get abroad--it was a cloud no bigger at first than a man's +hand--that if we had the money it was to hoard it, and if we had the +power it was to withhold its exercise; that we wanted, in fact, to +impose on the world by the menace of a force we never meant to employ, +and to rule Europe as great financiers "bear" the Stock Exchange--then, +and then for the first time, there arose that cry against England as a +sham and an imposition, of which, as I said before, it is very pleasant +for you at home if the sounds have not reached you. + +All our late policy has led to this. Ever ready to join with France, we +always leave her in the lurch. We went with her to Mexico, and left her +when she landed. We did our utmost to launch her into a war for Poland, +in which we had never the slightest intention of joining. Always prompt +for the initiative, we stop short immediately after. I have a friend who +says, "I am very fond of going to church, but I don't like going in." +This is exactly the case of England. She won't go in. + +Now, I am fully persuaded it would have been a mistake to have joined in +the Mexican campaign. I cannot imagine such a congeries of blunders as +a war for the Poles. But why entertain these questions? Why discuss +them in cabinets, and debate them in councils? Why convey the false +impression that you are indignant when you are indifferent, or feel +sympathy for sufferings of which you will do nothing but talk? + +"Masterly inactivity" was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has +led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate +politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were +dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first +of all essential you should show that you could do something very great +if you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb +having observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, the +prestige for this high quality, it was necessary that she should seem +to bestir herself. The British lion must have got up, rolled his eyes +fearfully, and even lashed his tail, before he resolved on the masterly +inactivity of lying down again. + +In Knickerbocker's 'History of New York' we have a very graphic +description of the ship in which the first Dutch explorers sailed for +the shores of North America. "The vessel was called the _Goede Vrouw_ +(Good Woman), a compliment to the wife of the President of the West +India Company, who was allowed by every one, except her husband, to be +a sweet-tempered lady--when not in liquor. It was, in truth, a gallant +vessel of the most approved Dutch construction--made by the ablest +ship-carpenters of Amsterdam, who, as is well known, always model their +ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had +one hundred feet in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one +hundred feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrel. Like the +beauteous model, who was declared to be the greatest belle of +Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a +copper-bottom, and withal a prodigious poop." + +It is, however, with her sailing qualities we are more interested than +with her build. "Thus she made as much lee-way as head-way--could +get along nearly as fast with the wind ahead as at poop, and was +particularly great in a calm." Would not one say, in reading this +description, that the humorist was giving prophetically a picture of the +England of the present day, making as much lee-way as head-way, none the +better, wherever the winds came from, and only great in a calm? The very +last touch he gives is exquisite. "Thus gallantly furnished, she floated +out of harbour sideways, like a majestic goose." Can anything be more +perfect; can anything more neatly typify the course the vessel of the +State is taking, "floating out sideways, like a majestic goose!" amidst +the jeers and mockeries of beholding Europe. + +Our whole policy consists in putting forward some hypothetical case, in +which, if certain other states were to do something which would cause +another country to do something else, then England would be found in +that case---- God forgive me! + +I was going to quote some of that balderdash which reminds one of 'The +Rivals,' where Acres says, "If you had called me a poltroon, Sir Lucas!" + +"Well, sir, and if I had?" + +"In that case I should have thought you a very ill-bred man." + +See what it is to have a literary Foreign Secretary; see how he +goes back to our great writers, not alone for his style, but his +statesmanship. We have been insulted, mocked, and sneered at; our +national honour derided, our national strength defied; but we are told +it is all right: our policy is a "masterly inactivity," and the Funds +are at ninety-one and one-eighth! + +The 'Times.' too, is of the same cheery and encouraging spirit, and +philosophically looks on the misfortunes of our friends pretty much +as friends' misfortunes are usually regarded in life--occasions for a +tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them--the writer +speaks of the Allied armies--let them go on in the career of rapine and +cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time +will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be +retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on +the soil of the Fatherland. + +"They are going to hang Larry," cried the wife of a condemned felon to +the lawyer, who had hurried into court, having totally forgotten he had +ever engaged to defend the prisoner. + +"Let them hang him, and I'll make it the dearest hanging ever they +hanged." + +These may be words of comfort in Downing Street. I wonder what the Danes +think of them? + + + + +A NEW HANSARD. + +There is an annual publication called the 'Wreck Register,' which +probably few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to +record all the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, +accompanying the narrative by such remarks or observations as may +contribute to explain each catastrophe, or offer likelihood of +prevention in future. It is, though thoroughly divested of any +sensational character, one of the dreariest volumes one can take up. +Disaster follows disaster so fast, that at length the reader begins to +imagine that shipwreck is the all but invariable event of a voyage, +and that they who cross the ocean in safety are the lucky mortals of +humanity. + +Fortunately, however, long as the catalogue of misfortune is, this +is not the case, and we have the satisfaction of learning that the +percentage of loss is decreasing with every year. The higher knowledge +and attainments of merchant captains, and the increase of refuge +harbours, are the chief sources of this security. The old ignorance, in +which a degree or two of latitude more or less was a light error in a +ship's reckoning, is now unheard of, and they who command merchant-ships +in our day are a very well informed and superior order of men. With +reference to the conduct and capacity of these captains, this 'Wreck +Register,' is a very instructive publication. If, for instance, you +find that Captain Brace, who was wrecked on the Azores in '52, was again +waterlogged at sea in '61, and ran into an iceberg off Newfoundland +in '62, you begin, mayhap unfairly, to couple him too closely with +disaster, and you turn to the inquest over his calamities to see what +estimate was formed of his conduct. You learn, possibly, that in +one case he was admonished to more caution; in another, honourably +acquitted; and in the last instance smartly reprimanded, and his +certificate suspended for six months or a year. Now, though you have +never heard of Captain Brace in your life, nor are probably likely to +encounter him on sea or land, you cannot avoid a certain sense of relief +at the thought that so unlucky a commander, to say the least of it, +is not likely for a while to imperil more lives, and that the warning +impressed by his fate will also be a salutary lesson to many others. + +It was in reflecting over this system of inquiry and sentence, that +it occurred to me what to admirable thing it would be to introduce +the 'Wreck Register' into politics, and to have a yearly record of all +parliamentary shipwrecks; all the bills that foundered, the motions that +were stranded, the amendments lost in a fog!--to be able to look back +and reflect over the causes of these disasters, investigating patiently +how and why and where they happened, and asking ourselves, Have we +any better security for the future? are we better acquainted with the +currents, the soundings, or the headlands? and, above all, what amount +of blame, if any, is attributable to the commander? + +If we find, for instance, that the barque Young Reform, no matter how +carefully fitted out for sea--new sheathed and coppered, with bran-new +canvass, and a very likely crew on board--never leaves the port that +she does not come back crippled; and that old and experienced captains, +however confidently they may take the command at first, frankly own that +they'll never put foot in her again, you very naturally begin to suspect +that there's something wrong in her build. She is either too unwieldy, +like the Great Eastern, or she is too long to turn well, or she requires +such incessant repair; or, most fatal of all, she is entered for a trade +where nobody wants her; and therefore you resolve that, come what will, +you'll avoid her. + +What an inestimable benefit to the student of politics would a few such +brief notices be, instead of sending him, as we send him now, to the +dreary pages of Hansard! Imagine what a neat system of mnemonics would +grow out of the plan, when, instead of poring over interminable columns +of tiresome repetition, you had the whole narrative in few words--thus: +"Barque Reform, John Russell, commander, lost A.D. 1854 The +Commissioners seeing that this vessel was built for the most part of +old materials, totally unseaworthy, are of opinion that she ought not +to have sailed at all; and severely censure the commander, J. R, for +foolhardiness and obstinacy, he having, as it has been proved, acted +in entire opposition to 'his owners.' On the pressing recommendation, +however, of the owners, and at the representation that E. has been long +in the service, and is, although too self-confident, a very respectable +man, his certificate has been restored to him." + +Lower down comes the entry:-- + +"The Young Reform.--This was a full-rigged ship, in great part +constructed on the lines of the barque lost in 1854. She sailed on the +28th February 1859, commanded by Captain Dizzy. No insurance could be +effected upon her on any terms, as the crew were chiefly apprentices, +and a very mutinous spirit aboard. She put back, completely crippled, +after three days' stormy weather; and though the commander averred that +some enemies of his owners had laid down false buoys in the channel, he +was not listened to by the Commissioners, who withheld his certificate. +Has never been employed since, and his case by many considered a very +hard one." + +Of course, all the small class of coasting vessels--railroad bills and +suchlike--suffer great losses. They are usually ill-found and badly +manned; but now and then we come upon curious escapes, where a measure +slips through unobserved, like a blockade-runner; and it is ten to one +in such cases they have that crafty old pilot Pam on board, who has been +more than fifty years at sea, and is as wide awake now as on his first +day. + +What analogies press in on every hand! Look at the way each party bids +for and buys up the old materials of the other, fancying they have some +"lines" of their own that will turn out a clipper to beat everything. +And think of those "Sailors' Homes," where old salts chew their quids at +ease--those snug permanent Under-Secretaryships, those pleasant asylums +in the Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in +Downing Street, where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not +at once before you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the "ordinary +seaman" higgling for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging +that his grog may not be watered? And, last of all, see the old +lighthouse-keepers, the veteran First Clerks who serve every +Administration, and keep their lamps bright for all parties--a fine set +of fellows in their way, though some people will tell you that they have +their favourites too, and are not so brisk about the fog-signals if they +don't like the skipper. + +I think I have done enough to show that such a work as I speak of would +redound to public benefit; and I only ask, if my suggestion be approved +of, that I may be remembered as the inventor, and not treated as +Admiralty Lords do the constructors of new targets, testing the metal +and torturing the man. Bear in mind, therefore, if the political 'Wreck +Register' be ever carried into execution, its device must be "O'Dowdius +fecit." + +It might not be amiss, in the spirit that has suggested this +improvement, to organise in connection with the proceedings of the House +a code of signals on the plan of Admiral Fitzroy's storm-signals, and +which, from the great tower, or some similar eminence, might acquaint +members what necessity for their presence existed. Fancy, for instance, +the relief an honourable gentleman would experience on seeing the +fine-weather flag up, and knowing thereby that something of no moment +was being discussed--a local railroad, a bill to enable some one to +marry his grandmother, or a measure for Ireland! Imagine the fog-signal +flying, and see how instantaneously it would he apprehended that D. G. +was asking the noble Lord at the head of the Government a question so +intensely absurd as to show a state of obscurity in his own faculties, +in comparison to which fog is a thin atmosphere! Or mark what excitement +would be felt as the storm-drum was hoisted, telling how the Government +craft was being buffeted and knocked about, and the lifeboat of the +Opposition manned to take charge of the ship if abandoned! What a mercy +to those poor, hard-worked, harassed, and wearied "whips"! what a +saving there would be in club-frequenting and in cab-hire! Now would the +lounger, as he strolled along Pall-Mall, say, "No need to hurry." +"light airs of wind from the east" means a member for Galway and some +balderdash about the Greeks. "Thick weather in the Channel" implies +troubles in Ireland--nothing very new or interesting. "Dirty weather +to the east'ard" would show mischief in the Danubian provinces, and a +general sense of unquiet in the regions of the Sultan Redcliffe. These +are hints which I have not patented, and the chances are that "My Lords" +will speedily adopt them, and call them their own. + + + + +FOREIGN CLUBS. + +How is it, will any one tell me, that all foreign Clubs are so ineffably +stupid? I do not suspect that we English are pre-eminent for social +gifts; and yet we are the only nation that furnishes clubable men. +Frenchmen are wittier, Germans profounder, Russians--externally at +least--more courteous and accommodating; and yet their Clubs are mere +_tripots_--gambling establishments; and, except play, no other feature +of Club-life is to be found in them. + +To give a Club its peculiar "cachet"--its, so to say, trade-mark--you +require a class of men who make the Club their home, and whose interest +it is that all the internal arrangements should be as perfect, as well +ordered, and frictionless as may be. Good furniture, good servants, good +lighting, good cookery, well-adjusted temperature, and a well-chosen +cellar, are all essentials. In a word, the Club is to be the realisation +of what we all think so much of--comfort. Now, how very few foreigners +either understand or care for this! Every one who has travelled abroad +has seen the "Cercle," or "L'Union," or whatever its name be, where +men of the highest station--ministers, ambassadors, generals, and +suchlike--met to smoke and play whist, with a sanded floor, a dirty +attendance, and yet no one ever complained. They drank detestable beer, +and inhaled a pestilent atmosphere, and sat in draughts, without a +thought that there was anything to be remedied, or that human skill +could or need contrive anything better for their accommodation. + +When these establishments were succeeded by the modern Club, with its +carpeted floor, silk hangings, ormolu lamps, and velvet couches, the +change was made in a pure spirit of Anglomanie; somebody had been over +to London, and come back full of the splendours of Pall-Mall. The work +of imitation, so far as decoration went, was not difficult. Indeed, in +some respects, in this they went beyond us, but there ended the success. +The Club abroad is a room where men gamble and talk of gambling, but no +more; it is not a Club. + +For the working of the Club, as for that of constitutional government, a +special class are required. It, is the great masses of the middle ranks +in England, varied enough in fortune, education, habits, and tastes, but +still one in some great condition of a status, that supply the materials +for the work of a parliamentary government; and it is through the supply +of a large community of similar people that Clubs are maintained in +their excellence with us. + +For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable +of all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club, +not alone to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to +interchange thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club +imparts; to hear the gossip of the day told in the spirit of men of +their own leanings; to ascertain what judgments are passed on public +events and public characters by the people they like to agree with;--in +fact, to give a sort of familiar domestic tone to intercourse, +suggesting the notion that the Club is a species of sanctuary where men +can talk at their ease. The men who furnish this category with us are +neither young nor old, they are the middle-aged, retaining some of the +spring and elasticity of youth, but far more inclining to the solidity +of riper years. If they frequent the Opera, it is to a stall, not to the +_coulisses_, they go. They are more critical than they used to be +about their dinners, and they have a tendency to mix seltzer with their +champagne. They have reached that bourne in which egotism has become an +institution; and by the transference of its working to the Club, they +accomplish that marvellous creation by which each man sees himself and +his ways and his wants and his instincts reflected in a thousand varied +shapes. + +Now, there are two things no nation of the Continent possesses--Spring, +and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell--some +have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for +sixty years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral +territory--no _mezzo termine_. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must +serve as a Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the absence of all serious +interest in life, which mark the leisure classes abroad, follow men +sometimes even to extreme old age. The successive changes of temperament +and taste which we mark at home have no correlatives abroad. +The foreigner inhabits at sixty the same sort of world he did at +six-and-twenty: he does not dance so much, but he lingers in the +ballroom, and he is just as keenly alive to all the little naughty talk +that amused him forty years ago, and folly as much interested to hear +that the world is just as false and as wicked as it used to be when he +was better able to contribute to its frailty and wickedness. + +Not one of these men, with their padded pectorals and dyed whiskers, +will admit that they are of an age to require comfort. They are ardent +youths all of them, turning night into day as of old, and no more +sensible of fatigue from late hours, hot rooms, and dissipation, than +they were a quarter of a century back. + +Can you fancy anything less clubable than a set of men like this? You +might as well set before me the stale bon-bons and sugar-plums of a +dessert for a dinner, as ask me to take such people for associates and +companions. The tone of everlasting trifling disgraces even idleness; +and these men contrive in their lives to reverse the laws of physics, +since it is by their very levity that they fall. + +The humoristic temperament is the soul of Club-life. It is the keen +appreciation of others in all their varied moods and shades of feeling +that imparts the highest enjoyment to that strange democracy, the +Club; and foreigners are immensely deficient in this element. They are +infinitely readier, smarter, and wittier than Englishmen. They will hit +in an epigram what we would take an hour to embrace in an argument; but +for the racy pleasure of seeing how such a man will listen to this, +what such another will say to that, how far individuality, in fact, will +mould and fashion the news of the day, and assimilate its mental food +to its own digestive powers, there is nothing like the Englishman--and +especially the Englishman of the Club. + +There is nothing like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten +to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in +the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and +obligingness, that we find the purest element of Club-life. + +The Parisian are the best--far and away the best--of all foreign Clubs; +best in their style of "get-up," decoration, and arrangement, and best +also in tone and social manner. The St Petersburg Club is the most +gorgeous, the habits the most costly, the play the highest. It is not +very long since that a young Russian noble lost in one evening a sum +equal to a hundred thousand pounds. The Vienna Club is good in its own +stiff German way; but, generally speaking, German Clubs are very ill +arranged, dirty, and comfortless. The Italian are better. Turin, Naples, +and Florence have reasonably good Clubs. Home has nothing but the +thing called the English Club, a poorly-got-up establishment of small +whist-players and low "points." + +It is a very common remark, that costume has a great influence +over people's conduct, and that the man in his shooting-jacket will +occasionally give way to impulsive outbursts that he had never thought +of yielding to in his white-cravat moments. Whether this be strictly +true or not, there is little doubt that the style and character of the +room a man sits in insensibly affects his manner and his bearing, and +that the habits which would not be deemed strange in the low-ceilinged +chamber, with the sanded floor and the "mutton lights," would be totally +indecorous in the richly-carpeted room, a blaze of wax-light, and +glittering with decoration. Now this alternating between Club and _Caf_ +spoils men utterly. It engenders the worst possible style--a double +manner. The over-stiffness here and the over-ease there are alike +faulty. + +The great, the fatal defect of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of +some one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of +presumed superiority and affectation of "knowing the whole thing," +browbeat and ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want +of that wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is +possible. Of public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any +shape; and yet it is by the unwritten judgments of such a tribunal that +society is guided in England, and the same law that discourages the +bully supports and encourages the timid, without either the one or the +other having the slightest power to corrupt the court, or coerce its +decrees. Club-life is, in a way, the normal school for parliamentary +demeanour; and until foreigners understand the Club, they will never +comprehend the etiquette of the "Chamber." + + + + +A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. + +I have frequently heard medical men declare that no test of a +candidate's fitness to be admitted as a physician was equal to a brief +examination at the bedside of a sick man. To be able to say, "There is +a patient; tell us his malady, and what you will do for it," was +infinitely better than long hours spent in exploring questions of minute +anatomy and theoretical physic. In fact, for all practical purposes, +it was more than likely he would be the best who would make the least +brilliant figure in an examination; and the man whose studies had +familiarised him with everything from Galen to John Hunter, would cut +just as sorry a figure if called on to treat a case of actual malady. + +It cannot possibly be otherwise. All that mere examination can effect, +is to investigate whether an individual has duly prepared himself +for the discharge of certain functions; but it never can presume to +ascertain whether the person is one fitted by nature, by habit, by +taste, or inclination, for the duties before him. Why, the student who +may answer the most abstruse questions in anatomy, may himself have +nerves so weak as to faint at the sight of blood. The physician who has +Paracelsus by heart, may be so deficient in that tact of eye, or ear, +or touch, as to render his learning good for nothing. Half an hour in +an hospital would, however, test these qualities. You would at once see +whether the candidate was a mere mass of book-learning, or whether he +was one skilled in the aspect of disease, trained to observe and +note all the indications of malady, and able even instantaneously to +pronounce upon the gravity of a case before him. This is exactly what +you want. No examination of a man's biceps and deltoid, the breadth of +his chest or the strength of his legs, would tell you whether he was +a good swimmer--five minutes in deep water would, however, decide the +matter. + +Now, I shall not multiply arguments to prove my position. I desire to be +practical in these "O'Dowdiana," and I strive not to be prosy. What +I would like, then, is to introduce this system of--let us call +it--Test-examination, into the Civil Service. + +I have the highest respect for the pedagogues of Burlington House. I +think highly of Ollendorff and I believe Colenso's Arithmetic a great +institution. I venerate the men who invent the impossible questions; but +I own I have the humblest opinion of those who answer them. I'd as soon +take a circus-horse, trained to fire a pistol and sit down like a dog, +to carry me across a stiff country, as I'd select one of these fellows +for an employ which required energy, activity, or ready-wittedness. +There is no such inefficiency as self-sufficiency; and this is the +very quality instilled by the whole system. Ask the veterans of the +Admiralty, the War Office, the Board of Trade, and the Customs, and +you will get but the same report, that for thorough incompetency and +inordinate conceit there is nothing like the prize candidate of a Civil +Service examination. Take my word for it, you could not find a worse +pointer than the poodle which would pick you out all the letters of the +alphabet. + +What I should therefore suggest is, to introduce into the Civil Service +something analogous to this clinical examination; something that might +test the practical fitness of the candidate, and show, not whether +the man has been well prepared by a "grinder," but whether he be a +heaven-born tide-waiter, one of Nature's own gaugers or vice-consuls. + +I know it is not easy to do this in all cases. There are employments, +too, wherein it is not called for. Mere clerkship, for instance, is an +occupation of such uniformity that a man is just like a sewing-machine, +and where, the work being adjusted to him, he performs it as a matter of +routine. There are, however, stations which are more or less provocative +of tact and ready-wittedness, and which require those qualities which +schoolmasters cannot give nor Civil Service examiners take away; such as +tact, promptitude, quickness in emergency, good-natured ease, patience, +and pluck above all. These, I say, are great gifts, and it would be well +if we knew how to find them. Let us take, by way of illustration, the +Messenger Service. These Foreign Office Mercuries, who travel the whole +globe at a pace only short of the telegraph, are wonderful fellows, and +must of necessity be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, +and yet how easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be +equal to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad roads +and bad dinners, bad servants and bad smells! How patient they must be +here--how peremptory there! How they must train their stomach to +long fastings, and their skins to little soap! What can Civil Service +examination discover of all or any of these aptitudes? Is it written in +Ollendorf, think you, how many hours a man can sit in a caleche? Will +decimal fractions support his back or strengthen his lumbar vertebrae? +What system of inquiry will declare whether the weary traveller will not +oversleep himself, or smash the head of his postilion for not awaking +him at a frontier? How will you test readiness, endurance, politeness, +familiarity with 'Bradshaw' and Continental moneys? + +I think I have hit on a plan for this, suggested to me, I frankly own, +by analogy with the clinical system. I would lay out the Green Park--it +is convenient to Downing Street, and well suited to the purpose--as +a map of Europe, marking out the boundaries of each country, and +stationing posts to represent capital cities. At certain frontiers I +would station representatives of the different nations as distinctly +marked as I could procure them: that is to say, I'd have a very polite +Frenchman, a very rude and insolent Prussian, a sulky Belgian, a roguish +Italian, and an extremely dirty Russian. Leicester Square could supply +all. It being all duly prepared, I'd start my candidate, with a heavy +bag filled with its usual contents of, let us say, a large box of +cigars, a set of fire-irons, twenty pots of preserved meats, a case +of stuffed birds, four cricket-balls, and a photograph machine, some +blue-books, and a dozen of blacking. I'd start him with this, saying +simply, "Vienna, calling at Stuttgart and Turin;" not a word more; +and then I'd watch my man--how he'd cross the Channel--how he'd cajole +Moossoo--and whether he'd make straight for the Rhine or get entangled +in Belgian railroads. I'd soon see how he dealt with the embarrassments +of the roads and relished the bad diet; and not alone would I test him +by hardships and hunger, fatigue and occasional upsets; but I'd try +his powers of self-resistance by surrounding him with dissolute young +_attachs_ given to blind hookey and lansquenet. I'd have him invited +to ravishing orgies, and tempted in as many ways as St Anthony; and +all these after long privations. Then, I'd have him kept waiting either +under a blazing sun or a deep snow, or both alternately, to test his +cerebral organisation; and I'd try him with impure drinking water and +damp sheets; and, last of all, on his return, I'd make him pass his +accounts before some old monster of official savagery, who would +repeatedly impugn his honesty, call out for vouchers, and d--n his +eyes. The man "who came out strong" after all these difficulties I would +accept as fully equal to his responsibilities, for it would not be alone +in intellectuals he had been tested: the man's temper, his patience, his +powers of endurance, his physical strength, his resources in emergency, +his readiness to meet difficulty, and, last of all, his self-devotion +in matters of official discipline, enabling him to combine with all the +noble qualities of a man the submissive attractions of a spaniel. + +"Are you sure," asks some one, "that all these graces and +accomplishments can be had for 500 per annum?" Not a doubt of it. It is +a cheap age we live in; and if you wanted a shipload of clever fellows +for a new colony, I'd engage to supply you on easier terms than with the +same number of gardeners or strong-boned housemaids. + +Last of all, this scheme might be made no small attraction in this +economical era--what is called self-supporting; for the public might be +admitted to paid seats, whence they could learn European geography by a +new and easy method. "Families admitted at a reduced rate--Schools and +Seminaries half-price." + + + + +OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. + +Whenever the Budget comes on for discussion there are some three or four +speakers, of whom Mr Williams of Lambeth is sure to be one, ready to +suggest certain obvious economies by the suppression of some foreign +missions, such as Dresden, Hanover, Stuttgart, &c. They have not, it is +true, anything forcible or pungent to say on the subject; but as they +say the same thing every year, the chances are that, on the drip-drip +principle, they will at last succeed either in abolishing these +appointments, or reducing the salaries of those who hold them. + +Ministers of course defend them, and Opposition leaders, who hope +one day to be Ministers, will also blandly say a word or two in their +favour. For my own part, I don't think the country cares much about the +matter, or interests itself more deeply who drones away life at Hanover +than who occupies an apartment at Hampton Court. In each case it is a +sort of dowager asylum, where antiquated respectability may rest and be +thankful. + +The occupants of these snug berths, however far from England--at least +in so far as regards any knowledge of public opinion--are sure to +be greatly alarmed at these suggestions for their suppression. Poor +pigeons! if you only knew what a sorry sportsman it is who fires at you, +you'd never flutter a wing. Be of good heart, I say. Even if Williams's +gun go off at all, the recoil may hurt himself, but it will never damage +you. Take my word for it, "the smooth-Bore of Lambeth never hit +anything yet." This assurance of mine--I have given it scores of times +personally--never gives the comfort that it ought; for these timid +souls, bullied by long dealings with the Office--tormented, as +Mr Carlyle would say, with much First Clerk--grow to be easily +panic-stricken, and have gloomy nightmares of a time when there shall be +no more life-certificates nor any quarter-days. + +I cannot enter into their feelings, but I suppose they are reasonable. +I conclude that one would like to have a salary, and to be paid it +punctually. Self-preservation is a law that we all recognise; and some +of these officials may possibly feel that there is no other line of life +open to them, and that, if you take away from them their mission, +they will be poor indeed. You will think me perhaps as absurd as Mrs +Nickleby, who connected roast-pork and canaries, if I confess to you +that it is an old mastiff that my father had when I was a boy that +brought these people very forcibly to my mind. Poor old Turco!--I +can't know how old he was, but he was nearly blind, exceedingly feeble, +intensely stupid, and much given to sleep. Still, whenever any one of +the family--he didn't mind the servants--would go out to the stableyard, +he'd rouse himself up, and, affecting to believe it was an intruder, +he'd give a fierce bark or two, when, discovering his error, he'd wag +his tail and go back to his den--all this being evidently done to show +that he was as vigilant as ever--a sort of protest, that said, "Don't +believe one word about my being blind and toothless, still less flatter +yourself that the place is secure. It requires all my activity and +watchfulness to protect; but go back in peace, I'm ready for them." + +Now, this is exactly what Turco is doing at Munich and Dresden. Whenever +Williams comes out with a hint that he is not wanted, Turco makes a +furious noise, rushes here and there after a turkey-cock if he can find +one, and thoroughly satisfies the family that he is an invaluable beast, +and could not be dispensed with. + +Like Turco, too, who always barked, or tried to bark, whenever he heard +any noise or commotion going on outside, these people are sure to make +an uproar if there be any excitement in their neighbourhood. No sooner +did Schleswig-Holstein begin to trouble the world, than despatches +began to pour in from places that a few weeks before even the messengers +scarcely knew on the map. They related interviews with unknown princes +and unheard-of ministers, and spoke of hopes, fears, wishes, and +anxieties of people who had not, to our appreciation, a more palpable +existence than the creatures of the heathen mythology! Much grumbling, +and sore of ear, Williams goes back to his kennel. + +"What! suppress the mission at Hohen-Schwein-stadt, when I hold here," +exclaims the Minister, "the admirable report of our diplomatic agent +on the state of public feeling in that important capital? Will the +honourable gentleman, to whose long experience of foreign politics I am +ready to bow, inform me how the relations of England with the +Continent are to be carried on unless through the intervention of +such appointments? Can the honourable member for ------" (a shipowner, +perhaps) "carry on his great and important business without agencies? +Can the honourable gentleman himself" (a brewer) "be certain that the +invigorating and admirable produce of his manufacture will attain the +celebrity that it merits, or become the daily beverage of countless +thousands in the tropics, unassisted by those aids which to commerce +or diplomacy are alike indispensable?" This is very like the Premier's +eloquence. I almost think I am listening to him, and even see the smile +of triumph with which he appeals at the peroration to his friends to +cheer him. Turco is safe this time; and, better still, he need never +bark again till next Easter and another Budget. + +It is a very curious thing--it opens a whole realm of speculation--how +small and few are the devices of humanity. We fancy we are progressing +simply because we change. We give up alchemy, and we believe in +medicine; we scout witchcraft, and we take to spirit-rapping; +and instead of monasteries and monks, we have missions and +plenipotentiaries. If it be a fine thing to die for one's country, it's +a pleasant one to live for it; to know that you inhabit an impenetrable +retreat, which no "Own Correspondents" ever invade, and where, if it was +not for Williams, no sense of fear or alarm could come to disturb the +tranquil surface of a stagnant existence. + +It is astonishing, too, what a wholesome dread and apprehension of +England and English power is maintained through the means of these small +legations in secluded spots of the Continent, in remote little duchies, +without trade or commerce, far away from the sea, where no one ever +heard of imports or exports, and the name of Gladstone had never been +spoken. In such places as these, a meddlesome old envoy, with plenty of +spare time on hand, often gets us thoroughly hated, always referring +to England as a sort of court of last appeal on every question, social, +moral, religious, or political, and dimly alluding to Lord Palmerston as +a kind of Rhadamanthus, whose judgments fall heavily on ill-doers. + +The helpless hopeless condition of small states in all such conflicts +was actually pitiable. The poor little trembling King Charles dog in the +cage of the lion, and who felt that he only lived on sufferance, was the +type of them. I remember an incident which occurred some years ago +at the Bagni di Lucca, which will illustrate what I mean. An English +stranger at one of the hotels, after washing his hands, threw his +basinful of soap-and-water out of the window just as the Grand-duke was +passing, deluging his imperial highness from head to foot. The stranger +hurried at once to the street, and, throwing himself before the dripping +sovereign, made the most humble and apologetic excuses for his act; but +the Grand-duke stopped him short at once, saying, "There, there! say no +more of it: don't mention the matter to any one, or I shall get into a +correspondence with Palmerston, and be compelled to pay a round sum to +you for damages!" + +After all, one could say for these small posts in diplomacy what, I +think it was Croker said for certain rotten boroughs in former days, "If +you had not had such posts, you would have lost the services of a number +of able and instructive men, who, entering public life by the small +door, are sure to leave it by the grand entrance." + +These small missions are very often charming centres of society in +places one would scarcely hope for it; and from these little-known +legations, every now and then, issue men whom it would not be safe for +Williams to bark at, and whom, even if he were rabid, he would not bite. + + + + +DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. + +What a number of ingenious reasons have been latterly given for the +decline of the Drama, and the decrease of interest now felt for the +stage. Some aver that people are nowadays too cultivated, too highly +educated, to take pleasure in a play; others opine that the novel has +supplanted the drama; others again declare that it is the prevalence +of a religious sentiment on the subject that has damaged theatrical +representation. For my own part, I take a totally different view of the +subject. My notion is this: the world will never pay a high price for +an inferior article, if it can obtain a first-rate one for nothing; in +other words, people are come to the conclusion that the best actors are +not to be found on the boards of the Haymarket or the Adelphi, but +in the world at large--at the Exchange, in the parks, on railroads or +river-steamers, at the soires of learned societies, in Parliament, at +Civic dinners or Episcopal visitations. + +Why has the masquerade ceased to interest and amuse? Simply because no +travestie of costume, no change of condition, is so strikingly ludicrous +as what we see on every side of us. The illiterate man with the revenue +of a prince; the millionaire who cannot write his name, and whom +yesterday we saw as a navvy; the Emperor who, a few years back, lodged +over the bootmaker's; the out-at-elbow followers of imperial fortune, +now raised to the highest splendour, and dispensing hospitalities more +than regal in magnificence;--these are the spectacles which make the +masquerade a tiresome mockery; and it is exactly because we get the +veritable article for nothing that we neither seek playhouse nor +ballroom, but go out into the streets and highways for our drama, +and take our Kembles and Macreadys as we find them at taverns, at +railway-stations, on the grassy slopes of Malvern, or the breezy cliffs +of Brighton. Once admit that the wild-flower plucked at random has more +true delicacy of tint and elegance of form, and there is no going back +to the tasteless mockery of artificial wax and wire. The broad boards of +real life are the true stage; and he who cannot find matter of interest +or amusement in the piece performed, may rely upon it that the cause is +in himself, and not in the drama. Some will say, The world is just what +it always was. People are no more fictitious now than at any other time. +There was always, and there will be always, a certain amount of false +pretension in life which you may, if you like, call acting. And to this +I demur _in toto_, and assert that as every age has its peculiar +stamp of military glory, or money-seeking, or religious fervour, or +dissipation, or scientific discovery, or unprofitable trifling, so the +mark of our own time will be found to be its thorough unreality. Every +one is in travestie. Selfishness is got up to play philanthropy, apathy +to perform zeal, intense self-seeking goes in for love of country; and, +to crown all, one of the most ordinary and vulgar minds of all Europe +now directs and disposes of the fate and fortunes of all Christendom. + +Daily habit familiarises us with the acting of the barrister. His +generous trustfulness, his love of all that is good, his scorn for Vice, +his noble pity, and the withering sarcasm with which he scathes the +ill-doer, we know, can be had, in common cases, for ten pounds ten +shillings; and five times as much will enlist in our service the same +qualities in a less diluted form; while, by quadrupling the latter sum, +we arrive at a self-devotion before which brotherly love pales, and old +friendships seem a cold and selfish indifferentism. We had contracted +for this man's acuteness, his subtlety, his quick perception, and his +ready-wittedness; but he gives, besides these, his hearty trustfulness, +his faith in our honour, his conviction in our integrity: he knows our +motives; he has been inside our bosom, and comes out to declare that all +is pure and spotless there; and he does this with a trembling lip and a +swelling throat, the sweat on his brow and the tear in his eye, it being +all the while a matter of mere accident that he had not been engaged on +the opposite side, and all the love he bears us been "briefed" for the +defendant. + +Look at the physician, too. Who is it, then, enters the sick-room with +the footfall of a cat, and draws our curtain as gently as a zephyr might +stir a rose-leaf, whose tender accents fall softly on our ear, and who +asks with the fondest anxiety how we have passed the night? Who is +it that cheers, consoles, encourages, and supports us? Who associates +himself with our sufferings, and winces under our pain, and as suddenly +rallies as we grow better, and joins in our little sickbed drolleries? +Who does all these?--a consummate actor, who takes from thirty to forty +daily "benefits," and whose performances are paid at a guinea a scene! + +The candidate on the hustings, the Government commissioner on his tour +of inspection, the vicar-general of my lord bishop, the admiral on his +station, the minister at the grand-ducal Court, are all good specimens +of common acting--parts which can be filled with very ordinary +capacities, and not above the powers of everyday artists. They conjugate +but one verb, and on its moods and tenses they trade to the end of the +chapter. These men never soar into the heroic regions of the drama; +they infuse no imagination into their parts. They are as unpoetical as a +lord-in-waiting. There are but two stops on their organ. They are bland, +or they are overbearing; they are either beautifully gentle, or they are +terrible in their wrath. + +It is a strange feature of our age that the highest walk of the +real-life drama should be given up to the men of money, and that Finance +should be the most suggestive of all that is creative, fanciful, and +imaginative. What a commentary on our era! It is no paradox I pronounce +here. The greatest actor I ever saw, the most consummate artist, was a +railroad contractor; that is, he had more persuasiveness, more of that +magnetic captivation which subordinates reason to mere hope, than +any one I ever listened to. He scorned the pictorial, he despised all +landscape effects, he summoned to his aid no assistance from gorge or +mountain, no deep-bosomed wood or bright eddying river; he was a man of +culverts and cuttings, of quartz and limestone and flint; with a glance +he could estimate traffic, and with the speed of the lightning-flash +tell you what dividend could come of the shares. + +It was, however, in results that he was grandiose. Hear him on the theme +of a completed line, a newly-opened tunnel, or a finished viaduct--it +was a Poem! Such a picture of gushing beatitude as he could paint! It +was the golden age--prosperity, happiness, and peace on every side; +the song of the husbandman at his plough mingling with the hum of the +village school; the thousand forms of civilisation, from cheap sugar to +penny serials, that would permeate the land; the peasant studying +social science over his tea, and the railway-guard supping his "cheap +Gladstone" as he speculated on the Antiquity of Man. Never was such an +Eden on earth, and all to be accomplished at the cost of a mere million +or two, with a "limited liability." + +With what a grand contempt this great man talked of the people who +busied themselves in the visionary pursuits of politics or literature, +or who devoted themselves to the Arts or Field-sports! With him +earthworks were the grandest achievements of humanity, and there was +no such civiliser as a parliamentary train. Had he been simply an +enthusiast, that fatal false logic that _will_ track enthusiasm--however +it be guided--would have betrayed him: but the man was not an +enthusiast--he was a great actor; and while to capitalists and +speculators he appealed by all the seductive inducements of profits, +premiums, and preference shares, to the outer and unmoneyed world he +made his approaches by a beautiful and touching philanthropy. + +Did he believe in all this? Heaven knows. He talked and acted as if he +did; and though, when I last saw him, he had smashed his banker, +ruined his company, and beggared the shareholders, he was high-hearted, +hopeful, and buoyant as ever. It was a general who had lost a battle, +but he meant to recruit another army. It was some accidental rumour of +a war--some stupid disturbance on the Danube or the Black Sea--that +had frightened capital and made "money tight." The scheme itself was +a glorious project--an unrivalled investment. Never was there such a +paying line--innumerable towns, filled with a most migratory population, +ever on the move, and only needing to learn the use of certain luxuries +to be constantly in demand of them. + +With a good harvest, however, and money easy, if Lord Russell could only +be commonly civil to the Continental Cabinets, all would go well yet. +The bounties of Providence would be diffused over the earth--food would +be cheap, taxation reduced, labour plenty, and "then, sir, these worthy +people shall have their line, if I die for it." + +I find it very hard to believe in Borneo's love or Othello's jealousy. +I cannot, let me do all that I will, accept them as real, even in their +most impassioned moments, and yet this other man holds me captive. If +I had a hundred pounds in the world, I'd put it into his scheme, and I +really feel that, in not borrowing the money to make a venture, I am +a poor-spirited creature that has not the courage to win his way to +fortune. + +And yet these fellows have no aid from dress or make-up. They are not +surrounded with all the appliances that aid a deception. They come to us +in their everyday apparel, and, mayhap, at inopportune moments, when +we are weary, or busy, or out of sorts, to talk of what we are not +interested in, and have no relish for. With their marvellous tact they +conquer apathy and overcome repugnance; they gain a hearing, and they +obtain at least time for more. There is much in what they say that +we feel no interest in; but now and then they _do_ touch a chord that +vibrates within us; and when they do so, it is like magic the instinct +with which they know it. It was that Roman camp, that lead-mine, that +trout-stream, or that paper-mill, did the thing; and the rogue saw it as +plainly as if he had a peep into our brain, and could read our thoughts +like a printed book. These then, I say, are the truly great actors, who +walk the boards of life with unwritten parts, who are the masters of our +emotions, even to the extent of taking away our money, and who demand +our trustfulness as a right not to be denied them. + +Now, what a poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly +and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is +going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed +plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive +thing that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, at the +station, in the club, on the chain-pier, or the penny steamer? Is there +any one, I ask, who will pay to see the plaster-cast when he can +behold the marble original for nothing? You say, "Are you going to the +masquerade?" and I answer, "I am at it." _Circumspice!_ Look at the +mock royalties hunting (Louis XIV. fashion) in the deep woods of +Fontainebleau. Look at haughty lords and ladies--the haughtiest the +earth has ever seen--vying in public testimonies of homage--as we saw +a few days ago--to the very qualities that, if they mean anything, +mean the subversion of their order. Look at the wasteful abundance of +a prison dietary, and the laudable economy which half-starves the +workhouse. Look at the famished curate, with little beyond Greek roots +to support him, and see the millionaire, who can but write his name, +with a princely fortune; and do you want Webster or Buckstone to give +these "characters" more point? + +Will you take a box for the 'Comedy of Errors,' when you can walk +into the Chancery Court for nothing? Will you pay for 'Much Ado about +Nothing,' when a friendly order can admit you to the House? And as for +a 'New Way to Pay Old Debts,' commend me to Commissioner Goulburn in +Bankruptcy; while 'Love's Last Shift' is daily performed at the Court of +Probate, under the distinguished patronage of Judge Wills. Is there any +need to puzzle one's head over the decline of the drama, then? You +might as well ask if a moderate smoker will pay exorbitantly for dried +cabbage-leaves, when he can have prime Cubans for the trouble of taking +them! + + + + +PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. + +I do not remember ever to have read more pompons nonsense than was +talked a few days ago in Parliament on the subject of pensions for +retired colonial governors. + +On all ordinary occasions the strongest case a man can have with the +British public is to be an ill-used man--that is to say, if you be a man +of mark, or note, or station. To be ill-used, as one poor, friendless, +and ignoble, is no more than the complement of your condition. It is in +the fitness of things that pauperism, which we English have declared +to be illegal, should neither be fondled nor caressed. To be ill-used +profitably there must be something pictorial in your case; it must have +its reliefs of light as well as shade. There must be little touches, +a bright "has been," sunny spots of a happy past Without the force +of these contrasts, there is no possibility of establishing the grand +grievance which is embodied in ill-usage. + +Now, Mr B. C. who brought on this motion was a sorry artist, and the +whole sum and substance of his case was, that as we secured the services +of eminent and able men, we ought to pay them "properly." Why, in that +one word "properly" lay the whole question. What constitutes proper +payment? Every career in life carries with it some circumstance either +of advantage or the reverse, which either compensates for the loss of a +material benefit, or is requited by some addition of a tangible profit. +The educated man who accepts three hundred a-year in the Church is +not recompensed, or considered to be recompensed, by this miserable +pittance. It is in the respect, the influence, the power, and the +reverence that attach to his calling he is rewarded. Place a layman in +the parish beside him with that income, and mark the difference of their +stations! The same of the soldier. Why or how does seven-and-sixpence +diurnally represent one the equal of the best in any society of the +land? Simply by a conventional treaty, by which we admit that a man, +at the loss of so much hard cash, may enjoy a station which bears no +imaginable proportion to his means. + +On the other hand, there are large communities who, addressing +themselves to acquire wealth and riches, care very little for the +adventitious advantages of social state. As it is told of Theodore Hook, +at a Lord Mayor's feast, that he laid down his knife and fork at the +fifth course, and declared "he would take the rest out in money;" so +there are scores of people who "go in" for the actual and the real. They +have no sympathy with those who "take out" their social status partly +in condition partly in cash, as is the case with the curate and the +captain. + +Almost every man, at his outset in life, makes some computation of how +much his career can pay him in money, how much in the advantages of rank +and station. The bailiff on the estate makes very often a far better +income than the village doctor; but do you believe that sculapius would +change places with him for all that? Is not the unbought deference +to his opinion, the respect to his acquirements, the obedience to his +counsel, something in the contract he makes with the world? Does he +not recognise, every day of his life, that he is not measured by the +dimensions of the small house he resides in, or the humble qualities +of the hack he rides, but that he has an acceptance in society totally +removed from every question of his fortune? + +In the great lottery we call life, the prizes differ in many things +besides degree. If the man of high ambition determine to strain every +nerve to attain a station of eminence and power, it may be that his +intellectual equal, fonder of ease, more disposed to tranquillity, will +settle down with a career that at the very best will only remove him a +step above poverty; and shall we dare to say that either is wrong? My +brother the Lord Chancellor is a great man, no doubt. The mace is a +splendid club, and the woolsack a most luxurious sofa; but as I walk +my village rounds of a summer's morning, inhaling perfume of earth +and plant, following with my eye the ever-mounting lark, have I not +a lighter heart, a freer step, a less wearied head? Have I not risen +refreshed from sleep? not nightmared by the cutting sarcasms of some +noble earl on my fresh-gilt coronet, some slighting allusion to my +"newness in that place"? Depend upon it, the grand law of compensation +which we recognise throughout universal nature extends to the artificial +conditions of daily life, and regulates the action and adjusts the +inequalities of our social state. + +What is a viceroy or a colonial governor? A man of eminence and ability, +doubtless, but who is satisfied to estrange himself from home and +country, and occupy himself with cares and interests totally new and +strange to him, for some five or fifteen thousand pounds a-year, plus +a great variety of other things, which to certain minds unquestionably +represent high value--the--station, the power, the prestige of a great +position, with all its surroundings of deference and homage. Large as +his salary is, it is the least distinctive feature of his high office. +In every attribute of rank the man is a king. In his presence the wisest +and the most gifted do no more than insinuate the words of their wisdom, +and beauty retires curtsying, after a few commonplaces from his lips. +Why, through all the employments of life, who ever attains to the like +of this? His presence is an honour, his notice is fame. To be his guest +is a distinction for a day; to be his host is to be illustrious for a +lifetime. Are these things nothing? Ask the noble earl as he sits in his +howdah; ask my lord marquis as he rides forth with a glittering staff. + +Did any one, even Mr B. C. himself, ever imagine that Mr Macready +ought to be pensioned after he had played Cardinal Wolsey? Was it +ever proposed, even in Parliament, that Mr Kean should have a retiring +allowance when he had taken off his robes as Henry IV.? These eminent +men were, however, just as real, just as actual, during their brief hour +on the stage, as His Excellency the Viceroy or the "Lord High." They +were there under a precisely similar compact. They had to represent a +state which had no permanence, and a power that had no stability. They +were to utter words which would be ridiculous from their lips to-morrow, +and to assume a port and bearing that must be abandoned when they +retired to change their clothes. + +It is one of my very oldest memories as a boy that I dined in company +with Charles Kemble. There was a good deal of talking, and a fair share +of wine-drinking. In the course of the former came the question of the +French Revolution of '30, and the conduct of the French King on that +occasion. Kemble took no part in the discussion; he listened, or seemed +to listen, filled his glass and emptied it, but never spoke. At last, +when each speaker appeared to have said his say, and the subject +approached exhaustion, the great actor, with the solemnity of a judge in +a charge, and with a grand resonance of voice, said: "I'll tell you how +it is, sirs; Charles X. has forfeited a--a--a right good engagement!" +And that was exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are +now taking, of kings and rulers--and let us profit by it. The colonial +king has his "engagement;" it is defined exactly like the actor's. He is +to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour +in the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not +always, of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes +seriously in him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some +impassioned moment or other like that in which I once knew Othello so +far carried away that he flung Iago into the orchestra. + +Pension Carlisle, pension Storks, if you will; but be just as well as +generous, and take care that you provide for Paul Bedford and Buckstone. + +In Archbishop Whately's 'Historic Doubts,' we find that the existence +of the first emperor can be disproven by the very train of argument +employed to deny the apostles. Let me suggest the converse of this mode +of reasoning, and ask, Is there a word you can say for the Viceroy +you cannot equally say for the actor? Have you an argument for him who +governs St Helena that will not equally apply to him who struts his hour +at the Haymarket? + +I perceive that the writer of a letter to the 'Times' advocates the +claims of the ex-Governors, on the plausible plea that it is exactly the +very men who best represent the dignity of the station--best reflect the +splendour of the Sovereign--who come back poor and penniless from the +high office: while the penurious Governor, who has given dissatisfaction +everywhere, made the colony half rebellious by his narrow economies, +and degraded his station by contemptible savings, comes back wealthy and +affluent--self-pensioned, in fact, and independent. + +To meet this end, the writer suggests that the Crown, as advised +thereon, should have a discretionary power of rewarding the well-doer +and refusing the claim of the unmeriting, which would distinctly +separate the case of the worthy servant of the Sovereign from that of +him who only employed his office to enrich himself. + +There is a certain shallow--it is a very shallow--plausibility about +this that attracts at first sight; and there would unquestionably be +some force in it, if dinner-giving and hospitalities generally were the +first requisites of a colonial ruler; but I cannot admit this. I cannot +believe that the man who administers India or Canada, or even Jamaica +or Barbadoes, is only an expatriated Lord Mayor. I will not willingly +consent to accept it as qualification for a high trust that a man has +a good cook and an admirable cellar, and an ostentatious tendency to +display the merits of both. Mind, I am no ascetic who say this: I like +good dinners; I like occasionally--only occasionally though--very good +dinners. I feel with a clever countryman who said he liked being asked +out to dine, "it was flattering, and it was nourishing;" but with all +this I should never think of "elevating my host" to the dignity of high +statesmanship on the mere plea of his hospitality. + +We have had some able men in our dependencies who were not in the least +given to social enjoyments, who neither understood them for themselves +nor thought of them for others--Sir Charles Napier, for instance. And +who, let me ask, would have lost the services of such a man to the +State, because he had not the tastes of a Sir William Curtis, nor could +add a "Cubitt" to his stature? + +All discretionary powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and +pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and +complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man. +Not to say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a +Government in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering +a premium for profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial +fellow-subjects the very habits and tastes which are the bane and +destruction of young communities. + +Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the +ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the +509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland +had really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his +administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one +undeniable test of an ex-Governor's due claim to a pension, since on the +question of a man's hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There +are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours' bordeaux. I +repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in +a police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, "Drunk +and Disorderly," so should any commission on pensions accept as valid +grounds for a pension, "Insolvent and a Bankrupt." + +To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply +nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day +has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not +invited him to breakfast to-morrow. + + + + +A GRUMBLE. + +I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of +course--I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in the +same position to enjoy it as I was--years ago. I am delicate about the +figures, for Mrs O'D. occasionally reads these sketches, and might feel +a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat--I wonder is +life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance with it? My +impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all the same +elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young people, and +witty people, and, better, there are beautiful people, in abundance. +There are great houses as of yore, maintained, perhaps, with even more +than bygone splendour: the horses are as good--the dogs as good--the +trout-streams as well stocked--the grouse as abundant--foreign travel is +more easy--all travel is more facile--there are more books and more +illustrated newspapers; and yet, with all these advantages--very +tangible advantages too--I do not think the present occupants make the +house as pleasant as their fathers did, and for the very simple reason, +that they never try. + +Indifferentism is the tone of the day. No one must be eager, pleased, +displeased, interested, or anxious about anything. Life is to be treated +as a tiresome sort of thing, but which is far too much beneath one to +be thought of seriously--a wearisome performance, which good manners +require you should sit out, though nothing obliges you to applaud or +even approve of it. This is the theory, and we have been most successful +in reducing it to practice. We are immensely bored, and we take good +care so shall be our neighbour. Just as we have voted that there is +nothing new, nothing strange, nothing amusing, we defy any one to differ +with us, on pain of pronouncing him vulgar. North American Indians are +not more case-hardened against any show of suffering under torture than +are our well-bred people against any manifestation of showing pleasure +in anything. "It wasn't bad," is about the highest expression of our +praise; and I doubt if we would accord more to heaven--if we got there. +The grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of +amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor +is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He +would admit that "the Governor"--meaning his father--was surprised; he +would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As +the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the very +expression of the features. They are intensely like each other. We are +told that a shepherd will know the actual faces of all the sheep in his +flock, distinguishing each from each at a glance. I am curious to know +if the Bishop of London knows even the few lost sheep that browse about +Rotten Eow of an afternoon, and who are so familiar to us in Leech's +sketches. There they are--whiskered, bearded, and bored; fine-looking +animals in their way, but just as much living creatures in 'Punch' +as they are yonder. It is said that they only want the stimulus of a +necessity, something of daring to tempt, or something of difficulty to +provoke them, to be just as bold and energetic as ever their fathers +were. I don't deny it. I am only complaining of the system which makes +sheep of them, reduces life to a dreary table-land, making the stupid +fellows the standard, and coming down to their level for the sake of +uniformity. Formerly they who had more wit, more smartness, more worldly +knowledge than their neighbours, enjoyed a certain pre-eminence; the +flash of their agreeability lighted up the group they talked in, and +they were valued and sought after. Now the very homage rendered, even in +this small way, was at least a testimony that superiority was recognised +and its claims admitted. What is the case now? Apathy is excellence, +and the nearest approach to insensibility is the greatest eminence +attainable. + +In the Regency, when George IV. was Prince, the clever talkers certainly +abounded; and men talk well or ill exactly as there is a demand for +the article. The wittiest conversationalist that ever existed would be +powerless in a circle of these modern "Unsurprised ones." Their vacant +self-possession would put down all the Grattans and Currans and Jeffreys +and Sydney Smiths in the world. I defy the most brilliant, the readiest, +the most genial of talkers to vivify the mass of inert dulness he will +find now at every dinner and in every drawing-room. + +The code of modern manners is to make ease the first of all objects; +and, in order that the stupidest man may be at his ease, the ablest is +to be sacrificed. He who could bring vast stores of agreeability to +the common stock must not show his wares, because there are a store of +incapables who have nothing for the market. + +They have a saying in Donegal, that "the water is so strong it requires +two whiskies;" but I would ask what amount of "spirits" would enliven +this dreariness; what infusion of pleasantry would make Brown and Jones +endurable when multiplied by what algebraists call an _x_--an unknown +quantity--of other Browns and Joneses? + +We are constantly calling attention to the fact of the influence exerted +over morals and manners in France by the prevailing tone of the lighter +literature, and we mark the increasing licentiousness that has followed +such works as those of Eugene Sue and the younger Dumas. Let us not +forget to look at home, and see if, in the days when the Waverleys +constituted almost all our lighter reading, the tone of society was not +higher, the spirit more heroic, the current of thought and expression +purer, than in these realistic days, when we turn for amusement to +descriptions of every quaint vulgarity that makes up the life of the +boarding-house or the strolling theatre. + +The glorious heroism of Scott's novels was a fine stream to turn +into the turbid river of our worldliness and money-seeking. It was +of incalculable benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble +devotion, high-hearted courage, and unsullied purity. + +I can remember the time when, as freshmen in our first year, we went +about talking to each other of 'Ivanhoe' and 'Kenilworth;' and I can +remember, too, when the glorious spirit of those novels had so possessed +us, that our romance elevated and warmed us to an unconscious imitation +of the noble thoughts and deeds we had been reading. + +Smile if you like at our boyish enthusiasm, it was better than the +mocking spirit engendered by all this realism, or the insensate craving +after stimulus taught by sensation novels. + +Now, I am not old enough to remember the great talkers of the time when +George III. was King, or those who made Carlton House famous; but I +belonged to a generation where these men were remembered, and where it +was common enough to hear stories of their Attic nights, those _noctes +cnque deorum_ which really in brilliancy must have far transcended +anything that Europe could boast of conversational power. The youth +of the time I speak of were full of these traditions. "If I am not the +rose, I grew near one," was no foolish boast; and certainly there was +both in the tone of conversation and the temper of society a sentiment +that showed how the great men had influenced their age, and how, even +after their sun had gone down, a warm tint remained to remind the world +of the glorious splendour that had departed. + +Being an Irishman, it is to Ireland I must go for my illustration, and +it is my pride to remember that I have seen some of those who were, +in an age of no common convivial excellence, amongst the first and the +greatest. They are gone, and I may speak of them by name--Lord +Plunkett, the Chief-Justice Bushe, Mr Casey, Sir Philip Crampton, Barr +Beresford--I need not go on. I have but to recall the leading men at the +bar, to make up a list of the most brilliant talkers that ever delighted +society. Nor was the soil exhausted with these; there came, so to say, a +second crop--a younger order of men--less versed in affairs, it is true, +less imbued with that vigorous conviviality that prevailed in their +fathers' days--but of these I must not speak, for they have now grown up +to great dignities and stations, they have risen to eminence and honour +and repute, and might possibly be ashamed if it were known that they +were once so agreeable. Let me, however, record one who is no more, +but who possessed the charm of companionship to a degree I never knew +equalled in all my varied experiences of life,--one who could bring the +stores of a well-stocked mind, rich in scholarship, to bear upon any +passing incident, blended with the fascination of a manner that was +irresistible. Highly imaginative, and with a power of expression that +was positively marvellous, he gave to ordinary conversation an elevation +that actually conferred honour on those who were associated with it; +and high above all these gifts and graces, a noble nature, generous, +hopeful, and confiding. With an intellect that challenged any rivalry, +he had, in all that touched worldly matters, the simplicity of a child. +To my countrymen it is needless I should tell of whom I speak; to +others, I say his name was Mortimer O'Sullivan. The mellow cadence of +his winning voice, the beam of his honest eye, the generous smile that +never knew scorn, are all before me as I write, and I will write no +more. + + + + +OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. + +There is a story current of a certain very eminent French naturalist, +who is so profoundly impressed by the truth of the Darwinian theory, +that he never passes the cage where the larger apes are confined in +the Jardin des Plantes without taking off his hat, making a profound +obeisance, and wishing them a _bon jour_. + +This recognition is touching and graceful. The homage of the witches to +him who should be king hereafter, had in it a sort of mockery that made +it horrible; but here we have an act of generous courtesy, based alike +on the highest discoveries of science and the rules of the truest +good-breeding. + +The learned professor, with all the instincts of great acquirements +and much self-knowledge united, admits them at once to equality and +fraternity--the liberty, perhaps, they will have to wait some time +for; but in that they are no worse off than some millions of their +fellow-countrymen. + +One might speculate long--I don't know exactly how profitably--on the +sense of gratitude these creatures must feel for this touching kindness, +how they must long for the good man's visit, how they must wonder by +what steps he arrived at this astonishing knowledge, how surprised they +must feel that he does not make more converts; and, last of all, what +pains they must take to exhibit in their outward bearing and behaviour +that they are not unworthy of the high consideration he bestows on them! +Before him no monkey-tricks, no apish indecorums--none even of those +passing levities which young gorillas will indulge in just like other +youths. No; all must be staid, orderly, and respectful--heads held well +up--hands at rest--tails nowhere; in fact, a port and bearing that would +defy the most scrutinising observer to say that they were less eligible +company than that he had just quitted at the caf. + +I own I have not seen them during the moment of the Professor's passage. +I am unable to state authentically whether all this be as I surmise, but +I have a strong impression it must be. Indeed, reflecting on the habits +and modes of the species, I should be rather disposed to believe +them given to an exuberant show of gratitude than to anything like +indifference, and expect to witness demonstrations of delight more +natural possibly than graceful. + +Now, I have not the most remote intention of impugning the Professor's +honesty. I give him credit--full credit--for high purpose, and for high +courage. "These poor brothers of ours," says he, "have tails, it is +true, and they have not the hypocampus major; but let me ask you, +Monsieur le Duc, or you, Monseigneur the Archbishop, will you dare to +affirm on oath that you yourself are endowed with a hypocampus major +or minor? Are you prepared to stand forward and declare that the +convolutions of your brain are of the regulation standard--that the +medullary part is not disproportioned to the cineritious--that your falx +is not thicker or thinner than it ought--and that your optic thalami are +not too prominent? And if you are not ready to do this, what avails all +your assumption of superiority? In these--they are not many--lie the +alleged differences between you and your caged cousins yonder." Thus +speaks, or might speak, the Professor; and, I repeat, I respect +his candour; but still I would venture to submit one small, perhaps +ungenerous doubt, and ask, Would he, acting on the noble instincts that +move him, vote these creatures an immediate and entire emancipation, or +would he not rather wait a while--a few years, say--till the habit +of sitting on chairs had worn off some of the tail, and a greater +familiarity with society suggested not to store up their dinner in their +jaws? Would he like to see them at once take their places in public +life, become public functionaries, and ministers, and grand cordons? + +Would he not rather, with that philosophy his country eminently teaches, +say, "I will do the pity and the compassion. To me be the sympathetic +part of a graceful sorrow. To posterity I bequeath the recognition of +these poor captives. Let them be liberated, by all means; but let it +be when I shall be no longer here to witness it. Let others face that +glorious millennium of gorilla greatness." + +I am afraid he would reason in this fashion; it is one thing to have an +opinion, and to have what Frenchmen call the "courage of your opinion." +He would say, "If Nature work surely, she works slowly; her changes are +measured, regular, and progressive. With her there are no paroxysms; +all is orderly--all is gradual It took centuries of centuries to advance +these poor creatures to the point they occupy; their next stage on the +journey is perhaps countless years away. I will not attempt to forestall +what I cannot assist. I will let Time do its work. They are not +ill-treated, besides; that large creature with the yellow eyebrows +grinned at me very pleasantly this morning, and the she-ourang-outang +was whipping her infant most naturally as I came by." + +"What a cold-blooded philanthropy is this!" cries another. "You say +these are our brothers and our kinsmen; you declare that anatomy only +can detect some small and insignificant discrepancies between us, and +that even in these there are some of whose functions we know nothing, +and others, such as the prehensile power, where the ape has the best +of it. What do you mean by keeping them there 'cribbed, cabined, and +confined'? Is a slight frontal inclination to disqualify a person from +being a prefect? Is an additional joint in the coccyx to prevent a man +sitting on the woolsack, or an extra inch in the astragalus to interfere +with his wearing spurs? If there be minute differences between us, +intercourse will abolish them. It will be of inestimable service +to yourselves to come into contact with these fresh, fine, generous +natures, uncontaminated by the vices of an effete and worn-out +civilisation. Great as are the benefits you extend to them, they will +repay you tenfold in the advantages to yourselves. Away with your +unworthy prejudices about a 'black pigment' and long heels! Take them to +your hearts and your hearths. You will find them brave--ay, braver than +your own race. Their teeth are whiter and their nails longer; there is +not a relation in life in which you will dare to call yourself their +better." + +I will go no farther, not merely because I have no liking for my +theme, but because I am pilfering. All these arguments--the very words +themselves--I have stolen from an American writer, who, in Horace +Greeley fashion, is addressing his countrymen on the subject of negro +equality. He not alone professes to show the humanity of the project, +but its policy--its even necessity. He declares to the whites, "You +want these people; without them you will sink lower and lower into that +effete degeneracy into which years of licentiousness have sunk you. +These gorillas--black men, I mean--are virtuous; they are abstemious; +they have a little smell, but no sensuality; they will make admirable +wives for your warriors; and who knows but one may be the mother of a +President as strikingly handsome as Ape Lincoln himself!" There is +no doubt much to be said for our long-heeled friends, whether with or +without a hypocampus major. I am not very certain that we compliment +them in the best taste when the handsomest thing we can say of them is, +that they are very like ourselves! It is our human mode, however, of +expressing admiration, and resembles the exclamation of the Oberland +peasant on seeing a pretty girl, "How handsome she'd be if she only had +a _gotre!_" + + + + +THE RULE NISI. + +A great many sea-captains discourage the use of life-preservers and +floating-belts on board ships of war, on the simple ground that men +should not be taught to rely for their safety on anything but what +conduces to save the ship. "Let there be but one thought, one effort," +say they, "and let that be for the common safety." If they be +right--and I suspect they are--we have made a famous blunder by our late +legislation about divorce. Of all the crafts that ever were launched, +marriage is one from which fewest facilities of desertion should be +provided. + +Romanism makes very few mistakes in worldly matters. There is no feature +of that Church so remarkable as its deep study and thorough acquaintance +with all the moods and wants and wishes of humanity. Whatever its +demerits, one cannot but admit that no other religion ever approached +it in intimacy with the human heart in all its emotions and in all its +strivings, whether for good or evil. + +Rome declares against all breach of the marriage tie. The Church, with +a spirit of concession it knows how to carry through all its dealings, +modifies, softens, assuages, but never severs conjugalism. It makes +the tie occasionally a slip-knot, but it never cuts the string, and I +strongly suspect that it is wise in its legislation. + +For a great many years we gave the policy that amount of imitation we +are wont to accord to Romanist practices; that is, we follow them in +part--we adopt the coat, but, to show that we are not mere imitators, +we cut off one of the skirts; and if we do not make the garment more +graceful, we at least consult our dignity, and that is something. We +made divorce the privilege of men rich enough to come to Parliament for +relief; we did with the question what some one proposed we should do +with poisons--make them so costly that only wealthy men should be able +to afford the luxury of suicide. So long as men believed that divorce +was immoral, I don't think any one complained that it should be limited +to persons in affluence. We are a lord-loving race, we English, and are +quite ready to concede that our superiors should have more vices than +ourselves, just as they have more horses and more pheasants; and we +deemed it nothing odd or strange that he, whose right it was to walk +into the House of Peers, should walk out of matrimony when it suited +him. + +Who knows?--perhaps we were flattered by the thought that great folk so +far conceded to a vulgar prejudice as to marry at all. Perhaps we hailed +their entrance into conjugalism as we are wont to do their appearance +at a circus or a public garden--a graceful acknowledgment that they +occasionally felt something like ourselves: at all events, we liked +it, and we showed we liked it by the zeal with which we read those +descriptions in newspapers of marriages in high life, and the delight +with which we talked to each other of people we never saw, nor probably +ever should see. It was not too much, therefore, to concede to them this +privilege of escape. It was very condescending of them to come to the +play at all; we had no right to insist that they should sit out the +whole performance. + +By degrees, however, what with rich cotton-lords, and cheap +cyclopaedias, and penny trains, and popular lectures, there got up a +sort of impression--it was mere impression for a long time--that great +folk had more than their share of the puddings' plums; and agitators +began to bestir themselves. What were the privileges of the higher +classes which would sit most gracefully on their inferiors? Naturally +we bethought us of their vices. It was not always so easy to adopt my +lord's urbanity, his unassuming dignity, his well-bred ease; but one +might reasonably aspire to be as wicked. Sabbath-breaking had long since +ceased to be the privilege of the better classes, and so men's minds +reverted to the question of divorce. "Let us get rid of our wives!" +cried they; "who knows but the day may come when we shall kill +woodcocks?" + +Now the law, in making divorce a very costly process, had simply desired +to secure its infrequency. It was not really meant to be a rich man's +privilege. What was sought for was to oppose as many obstacles as could +be found, to throw in as many rocks as possible into the channel, so +that only he who was intently bent on navigating the stream would ever +have the energy to clear the passage. Nobody ever dreamed of making it +an open roadstead. In point of fact, the oft-boasted equality before +the law is a myth. The penalty which a labourer could endure without +hardship might break my lord's heart; and in the very case before us of +divorce, nothing can possibly be more variable than the estimate formed +of the divorced individuals, according to the class of society they move +in. + +What would be a levity here, would be a serious immorality there; and +a little lower down again, a mere domestic arrangement, slightly more +decorous and a shade more legal than the old system of the halter and +the public sale. It was declared, however, that this "relief"--that is +the popular phrase in such matters--should be extended to the poor +man. It was decided that the privilege to get rid of a wife was, as +Mr Gladstone says of the electoral right, the inalienable claim of a +freeman, and the only course was to lower the franchise. + +Let us own, too, we were ashamed, as we had good right to be ashamed, of +our old _crim. con._ law. Foreigners, especially Frenchmen, had rung +the changes on our coarse venality and corruption; and we had come to +perceive--it took some time, though--that moneyed damages were scarcely +the appropriate remedy for injured honour. + +Last of all, free-trade notions had turned all our heads: we were +for getting rid of all restrictions on every side; and we went about +repeating to each other those wise saws about buying in the cheapest and +selling in the dearest market, and having whatever we wanted, and doing +whatever we liked with our own. We are, there is no denying it, a nation +of shopkeepers; and the spirit of trade can be tracked through every +relation of our lives. It is commerce gives the tone to all our +dealings; and we have carried its enactments into the most sacred of all +our institutions, and imparted a "limited liability" even to marriage. + +Cheapness became the desideratum of our age, We insisted on cheap gloves +and shoes and wine and ribbons, and why not cheap divorces? Philosophers +tell us that the alternate action of the seasons is one of the purest +and most enduring of all sources of enjoyment; that perpetual summer +or spring would weary and depress; but in the ever-changing aspect +of nature, and in the stimulation which diversity excites, we find an +unfailing gratification. If, therefore, it be pleasant to be married, +it may also be agreeable to be unmarried. It takes some time, however, +before society accommodates itself to these new notions. The newly +divorced, be it man or woman, comes into the world like a patient after +the smallpox--you are not quite certain whether the period of contagion +is past, or if it be perfectly safe to go up and talk to him. In fact, +you delay doing so till some strong-minded friend or other goes boldly +forward and shakes the convalescent by the hand. Even still there will +be timid people who know perhaps that their delicacy of constitution +renders them peculiarly sensitive, and who will keep aloof after all. Of +course, these and similar prejudices will give way to time. We have +our Probate Court; and the phrase _co-respondent_ is now familiar as a +household word. + +Now, however tempting the theme, I am not going to inquire whether we +have done wisely or the reverse by this piece of legislation; whether, +by instilling certain precepts of self-control, a larger spirit of +accommodation, and a more conciliatory disposition generally, we might +have removed some of the difficulties without the heroic remedy of the +decree _nisi_; whether, in fact, it might not have been better to teach +people to swim, or even float, rather than make this great issue of +cheap life-belts. I am so practical that I rather address myself to +profit by what is, than endeavour by any change to make it better. We +live in a statistical age. We are eternally inquiring who it is wants +this, who consumes that, who goes to such a place, who is liable to this +or that malady. Classification is a passion with us; and we have bulky +volumes to teach us what sorts of people have chest affections, what are +most prone to stomachic diseases, who have ophthalmia, and who the +gout. We are also instructed as to the kind of persons most disposed to +insanity, and we have a copious list of occupations given us which +more or less incline those who profess them to derangement. Even the +Civil-Service Examiners have contributed their share to this mass of +entertaining knowledge, and shown from what parts of the kingdom bad +spellers habitually come, what counties are celebrated for cacography, +and in what districts etymology is an unknown thing. Would it not, then, +be a most interesting and instructive statistic that would give us +a tabular view of divorce, showing in what classes frailty chiefly +prevailed, with the relative sexes, and also a glimpse at the ages? +Imagine what a light the statement would throw on the morality of +classes, and what an incalculable benefit to parents in the choice of a +career for their children! For instance, no sensible father would select +a life of out-door exposure for a weak-chested son, or make a sailor of +one with an incurable sea-sickness. In the same way would he be guided +by the character of his children as to the perils certain careers would +expose them to. + +A passing glance at the lists of divorce shows us that no +"promovent"--it is a delicate title, and I like it--no promovent figures +oftener than a civil engineer. Now, how instructive to inquire why! + +What is there in embankments and earthworks and culverts that should +dispose the wife of him who makes them to infidelity? Why should a +tunnel only lead to domestic treachery? why must a cutting sever the +heart that designs it? I do not know; I cannot even guess. My ingenuity +stands stockstill at the question, and I can only re-echo, Why? + +Next amongst the "predisposed" come schoolmasters, plasterers, &c. What +unseen thread runs through the woof of these natures, apparently so +little alike? It is the boast of modern science to settle much that +once was puzzling, and reconcile to a system what formerly appeared +discordant. How I wish some great Babbage-like intellect would bestir +itself in this inquiry. + +Surely ethical questions are as well worthy of investigation as purely +physical or mechanical ones, and yet we ignore them most ignominiously. +We think no expense too great to test an Armstrong or a Whitworth gun; +we spend thousands to ascertain how far it will carry, what destructive +force it possesses, and how long it will resist explosion;--why not +appoint a commission of this nature on "conjugate;" why not ascertain, +if we can, what is the weak point in matrimony, and why are explosions +so frequent? Is the "cast" system a bad one, and must we pronounce +"welding" a failure? or, last of all, however wounding to our national +vanity, do "they understand these things better in France"? + + + + +ON CLIMBING BOYS. + +With the common fate of all things human, it is said that every career +and walk in life has some one peculiar disparagement--something that, +attaching to the duties of the station as a sort of special grievance, +serves to show that none of us, no matter how favoured, are to imagine +there can be any lot exempted from its share of troubles. Ask the +soldier, the sailor, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, or the actor, +and each will give you a friendly warning to adopt any other career than +his own. + +In most cases the _quid amarum_, the one bitter drop, is to be found in +the career itself, something that belongs to that one craft or calling; +just as the white-lead colic, for instance, is the fatal malady of +painters. There are, however, a few rare cases in which the detracting +element attaches itself to the followers and not to the profession, as +though it would seem there was a something in the daily working of that +peculiar craft which warped the minds and coerced the natures of men +to be different from what temperament and character should have made of +them. + +The two classes which most prominently exhibit what I mean are somewhat +socially separated, but they have a number of small analogies in common. +They are Sweeps and Statesmen! It would be tempting--but I resist the +temptation--to show how many points of resemblance unite them--how each +works in the dark, in a small, narrow, confined sphere, without view or +outlet; how the tendency of each is to scratch his way upwards and gain +the top, caring wonderfully little how black and dirty the process has +made him. One might even go farther, and mark how, when indolence or +weariness suggested sloth, the stimulus of a little fire underneath, +whether a few lighted straws or a Birmingham mass-meeting, was sure to +quicken progress and excite activity. + +Again, I make this statement on the faith of Lord Shaftesbury, who +pronounced it before their Lordships in the Upper House:--"It is no +uncommon thing to buy and sell them. There is a regular traffic in them; +and through the agency of certain women, not the models of their sex, +you can get any quantity of them you want." Last of all, on the same +high authority, we are told of their perfect inutility, "since there is +nothing that they do could not be better done by a machine." + +I resist, as I say, all temptations of this kind, and simply address +myself to the one point of similarity between them which illustrates the +theory with which I have started--and now to state this as formally as +I am able. Let me declare that in all the varied employments of life +I have never met with men who have the same dread of their possible +successors as sweeps and statesmen. The whole aim and object of each +is directed, first of all, to keep those who do their work as little +as possible, well knowing that the time will come when these small +creatures will find the space too confined for them, and set up for +themselves. + +A volume might be written on the subtle artifices adopted to keep them +"little"--the browbeatings, the insults, the crushing cruelties, the +spare diet intermixed with occasional stimulants, the irregular hours, +and the heat and confinement of the sphere they work in. Still, nature +is stronger than all these crafty contrivances. The little sweep will +grow into the big sweep, and the small under-sec. will scratch his way +up to the Cabinet I will not impose on my reader the burden of carrying +along with him this double load. I will address myself simply to one +of these careers--the Statesman's. It is a strange but a most +unquestionable fact, that no other class of men are so ill-disposed to +those who are the most likely to succeed them--not of an Opposition, +for that would be natural enough, but of their own party, of their +own colour, of their own rearing. Let us be just: when a man has long +enjoyed place, power, and pre-eminence, dispensed honours and pensions +and patronage, it is not a small trial to discover that one of those +little creatures he has made--whose first scraper and brush he himself +paid for--I can't get rid of the sweep out of my head--will turn +insolently on him and declare that he will no longer remain a +subordinate, but go and set up for himself. This is excessively hard, +and might try the temper of a man even without a fit of the gout. + +It is exactly what has just happened; an apprentice, called Gladstone, +having made a sort of connection in Manchester and Birmingham, a +district abounding in tall chimneys, has given warning to his master Pam +that he will not sweep any longer. He is a bold, aspiring sort of lad, +and he is not satisfied with saying--as many others have done--that he +is getting too broad-shouldered for his work; but he declares that the +chimneys for the future must be all made bigger and the flues wider, +just because he likes climbing, and doesn't mean to abandon it. There is +no doubt of it. Manchester and Stockport and Birmingham have put this in +his head. Their great smelting-houses and steam-power factories require +big chimneys; and being an overbearing set of self-made vulgar fellows, +they say they ought to be a law to all England. You don't want to make +cotton-twist, or broad-gauge iron; so much the worse for you. It is +the grandest object of humanity. Providence created men to manufacture +printed cottons and cheap penknives. We of Manchester understand what +our American friends call manifest destiny; we know and feel ours will +be--to rule England. Once let us only introduce big chimneys, and you'll +see if you won't take to spinning-jennies and mules and treddles; +and there's that climbing boy Gladstone declares he'll not leave the +business, but go up, no matter how dirty the flue, the day we want him. + +Some shrewd folk, who see farther into the millstone than their +neighbours, have hinted that this same boy is of a crotchety, intriguing +type, full of his own ingenuity, and enamoured of his own subtlety; +so that make the chimney how great you will, he'll not go up it, but +scratch out another flue for himself, and come out, heaven knows where +or how. Indeed, they tell that on one occasion of an alarm of fire +in the house--caused by a pantry-boy called Russell burning some +wasterpaper instead of going up the chimney as he was ordered--this +same Will began to tell how the Greeks had no chimneys, and a mass +of antiquarian rubbish of the same kind, so that his master, losing +patience, exclaimed, "Of all plagues in the world he knew of none to +compare with these 'climbing boys!'" + + + + +LINGUISTS + +There are two classes of people not a little thought of, and even +caressed, in society, and for whom I have ever felt a very humble +estimate--the men who play all manner of games, and the men who speak +several languages. I begin with the latter, and declare that, after +a somewhat varied experience of life, I never met a linguist that was +above a third-rate man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced +upon a really able man who had the talent for languages. + +I am well aware that it sounds something little short of a heresy to +make this declaration. It is enough to make the blood of Civil-Service +Commissioners run cold to hear it. It sounds illiberal--and, worse, +it seems illogical. Why should any intellectual development imply +deficiency? Why should an acquirement argue a defect? I answer, I don't +know--any more than I know why sanguineous people are hot-tempered, and +leuco-phlegmatic ones are more brooding in their wrath. If--for I do not +ask to be anything higher than empirical--if I find that parsimonious +people have generally thin noses, and that the snub is associated with +the spendthrift, I never trouble myself with the demonstration, but I +hug the fact, and endeavour to apply it. + +In the same spirit, if I hear a man in a salon change from French to +German and thence diverge into Italian and Spanish, with possibly a +brief excursion into something Scandinavian or Sclav--at home in each +and all--I would no more think of associating him in my mind with +anything responsible in station or commanding in intellect, than I +should think of connecting the servant that announced me with the last +brilliant paper in the 'Quarterly.' + +No man with a strongly-marked identity--and no really able man ever +existed without such--can subordinate that identity so far as to put on +the foreigner; and without this he never can attain that mastery of +a foreign language that makes the linguist. To be able to repeat +conventionalities--bringing them in at the telling moment, adjusting +phrases to emergencies, as a joiner adapts the pieces of wood to his +carpentry--may be, and is, a very neat and a very dexterous performance, +but it is scarcely the exercise to which a large capacity will address +itself. Imitation must be, in one sense or other, the stronghold of the +linguist--imitation of expression, of style, of accent, of cadence, of +tone. The linguist must not merely master grammar, but he must manage +gutturals. The mimicry must go farther: in simulating expression it must +affect the sentiment. You are not merely borrowing the clothes, but you +are pretending to put on the feelings, the thoughts, the prejudices +of the wearer. Now, what man with a strong nature can merge himself so +entirely in his fictitious being as not to burst the seams and tear the +lining of a garment that only impedes the free action of his limbs, and +actually threatens the very extinction of his respiration? + +It is not merely by their greater adaptiveness that women are better +linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their +more subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which +are consequently less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual +self. And what is it that makes the men of mark or note, the cognate +signs of human algebra, but these same characteristics; not always +good, not always pleasant, not always genial, but always associated with +something that declares preeminence, and pronounces their owner to be a +"representative man"? + +When Lord Ward replied to Prince Schwartzenberg's flippant remark on +the bad French of English diplomatists by the apology, "that we had not +enjoyed the advantage of having our capital cities so often occupied by +French troops as some of our neighbours," he uttered not merely a smart +epigram but a great philosophical truth. It was not alone that we had +not possessed the opportunity to pick up an accent, but that we had not +subordinated our minds and habits to French modes and ways of thought, +and that the tone and temper of the French people had not been beaten +into us by the roll of a French drum. One may buy an accomplishment +too dearly. It is possible to pay too much even for a Parisian +pronunciation! Not only have I never found a linguist a man of eminence, +but I have never seen a linguist who talked well. Fluent they are, of +course, like the Stecknadel gun of the Prussians, they can fire without +cessation, but, like the same weapon, they are comparatively aimless. It +is a _feu roulant_, with plenty of noise and some smoke, but very +"few casualties" announce the success. The greatest linguist of modern +Europe, Mezzofanti, was a most inferior man. Of the countries whose +dialect he spoke to perfection, he knew nothing. An old dictionary would +have been to the full as companionable. I find it very hard not to be +personal just now, and give a list--it would be a long one--of all the +tiresome people I know, who talk four, five, some of them six modern +languages perfectly. It is only with an effort I abstain from mentioning +the names of some well-known men who are the charming people at Borne +and Vienna every winter, and each summer are the delight of Ems, of +Berlin, and of Ischl. What tyrants these fellows are, too, over the +men who have not got their gift of tongues! how they out-talk them and +overbear them! with what an insolent confidence they fall back upon +the petty superiority of their fluency, and lord it over those who are +immeasurably their masters! Just as Blondin might run along the rigging +of a three-decker, and pretend that his agility entitled him to command +a squadron! + +Nothing, besides, is more imposing than the mock eloquence of good +French. The language in itself is so adaptive, it is so felicitous, +it abounds in such innumerable pleasant little analogies, such nice +conceits and suggestive drolleries, that he who acquires these has at +will a whole armoury of attack and defence. It actually requires years +of habit to accustom us to a display that we come at last to discover +implies no brilliancy whatever in him who exhibits, though it argues +immense resources in the treasury from which he derives this wealth. + +I have known scores of delightful talkers--Frenchmen--who had no other +charm than what their language lent them. They were neither profound, +nor cultivated, nor witty--some were not even shrewd or acute; but all +were pleasant--pleasant in the use of a conversational medium, of +which the world has not the equal--a language that has its set form of +expression for every social eventuality, and that hits to a nicety every +contingency of the "salon;" for it is no more the language of natural +people than the essence of the perfumer's shop is the odour of a field +flower. It is pre-eminently the medium of people who talk with tall +glasses before them, and an incense of truffles around them, and +well-dressed women--clever and witty, and not over-scrupulous in their +opinions--for their company. Then, French is unapproachable; English +would be totally unsuited to the occasion, and German even more so. +There is a flavour of sauer kraut about that unhappy tongue that would +vulgarise a Queen if she talked it. + +To attain, therefore, the turns and tricks of this language--for it is +a Chinese puzzle in its involvements--what a life must a man have +led! What "terms" he must have "put in" at cafs and restaurants! +What seasons at small theatres--tripots and worse! What nights at +bals-masqus, Chateaux des Fleurs, and Cadrans rouges et bleus! What +doubtful company he must have often kept! What company a little more +than doubtful occasionally! What iniquities of French romance must he +have read, with all the cardinal virtues arrayed as the evil destinies +of humanity, and every wickedness paraded as that natural expansion of +the heart which alone raises man above the condition of the brute! I +ask, if proficiency must imply profligacy, would you not rather find a +man break down in his verbs than in his virtue? Would you not prefer +a little inaccuracy in his declensions to a total forgetfulness of the +decalogue? And, lastly of all, what man of real eminence could have +masqueraded--for it is masquerading--for years in this motley, and come +out, after all, with even a rag of his identity? + +Many people would scruple to play at cards with a stranger whose mode of +dealing and general manipulation of the pack bespoke daily familiarity +with the play-table. They would infer that he was a regular and +professional gambler. In the very same way, and for the selfsame reason, +would I carefully avoid any close intimacy with the Englishman of fluent +French, well knowing he could not have graduated in that perfection save +at a certain price. But it is not at the moral aspect of the question I +desire particularly to look. I assert--and I repeat my assertion--that +these talkers of many tongues are poor creatures. There is no initiative +in them--they suggest nothing--they are vendors of second-hand wares, +and are not always even good selectors of what they sell. It is only +in narrative that they are at all endurable. They can _raconter_, +certainly; and so long as they go from salon to salon repeating in +set phrase some little misadventure or accident of the day, they are +amusing; but this is not conversation, and they do not converse. + +"Every time a man acquires a new language, is he a new man?" is supposed +to have been a saying of Charles V.--a sentiment that, if he uttered it, +means more of sarcasm than of praise; for it is the very putting off +a man's identity that establishes his weakness. All real force of +character excludes dualism. Every eminent, every able man has a certain +integrity in his nature that rejects this plasticity. + +It is a very common habit, particularly with newspaper writers, to +ascribe skill in languages, and occasionally in games, to distinguished +people. It was but the other day we were told that Garibaldi spoke ten +languages fluently. Now Garibaldi is not really master of two. He +speaks French tolerably; and his native language is not Italian, but +a patois-Genoese. Cavour was called a linguist with almost as little +truth; but people repeat the story, just as they repeat that Napoleon I. +was a great chess-player. If his statecraft and his strategy had been on +a par with his chess, we should never have heard of Tilsit or Wagram. + +Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, and George Canning, each of +whom administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, +were not linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence +on record that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not +want to decry the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that +linguists--and through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists--are +for the most part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than +by the gift of tongues; and I want to protest against the undue +pre-eminence accorded to the possessors of a small accomplishment, and +the readiness with which the world, especially the world of society, +awards homage to an acquirement in which a boarding-school Miss can +surpass Lord Brougham. I mean to say a word or two about those who have +skill in games; but as they are of a higher order of intelligence, I'll +wait till I have got "fresh wind" ere I treat of _them_. + + + + +THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. + +As there are few better tests of the general health of an individual +than in the things he imagines to be injurious to him, so there is +no surer evidence of the delicate condition of a State than in the +character of those who are assumed to be dangerous to it. Now, after all +that has been said of Rome and the corruptions of Roman government, I do +not know anything so decidedly damnatory as the fact, to which allusion +was lately made in Parliament, that the Papal Government had ordered Mr +Home, the spiritualist, to quit the city and the States of his Holiness, +and not to return to them. + +In what condition, I would ask, must a country be when such a man is +regarded as dangerous? and in what aspect of his character does the +danger consist? + +Do we want ghosts or spirits to reveal to us any more of the iniquities +of that State than we already know? Is there a detail of its corrupt +administration that the press of Europe has not spread broadcast over +the world? What could Mr Home and all his spirits tell us of peculation, +theft, subornation, bigotry, and oppression, that the least observant +traveller has not brought home with him? + +And then, as to the man himself, how puerile it is to give him this +importance! The solitary bit of cleverness about him is his statement +that he has no control whatever over the spirits that attend him. Asking +him not to summon them, is pretty like asking Mr Windham not to send for +his creditors. They come pretty much as they like, and probably their +visits are about equally profitable. + +In this respect Home belongs to a very low order of his art. When Bosco +promises to make a bouquet out of a mouse-trap, or Houdin engages to +concoct a batter-pudding in your hat, each keeps his word. There is no +subterfuge about the temper the spirits may happen to be in, or of their +willingness or unwillingness to present themselves. The thing is done, +and we see it--or we think we see it, which comes much to the same. + +With this provision of escape Mr Home secures himself against all +failure. Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more +discriminating and observant character than he liked or anticipated, +and the exhibition in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to +do was, to aver that the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown +on _his_ part Homer was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon +was indisposed to meet company, and there was the end of it. You were +invited to meet celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they would +present themselves. + +On the other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered--when +the sance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and +hysterical as they ought to be--when the nervous lady sat beside the +timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia--the +artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that +astounded even himself. What limit is there, besides, to contagional +sympathy? Look at the crowded theatre, with its many-minded spectators, +and see how one impulse, communicated occasionally by a hireling, will +set the whole mass in a ferment of enthusiastic delight. Mark, too, how +the smile, that plays like an eddy on a lake, deepens into a laugh, and +is caught up by another and another, till the whole storm breaks out in +a hearty ocean of merriment. These, if you like, are spirits; but the +great masters of them are not men like Mr Home--they have ever been, +and still are, of a very different order. Shakespeare and Molire and +Cervantes knew something of the mode to summon these imps, and could +make them come at their bidding besides. + +Was it--to come back to what I started with--was it in any spirit of +rivalry that the Papal Government drove Mr Home out of Home? Was it +that, assuming to have a monopoly in the wares he dealt in, they +would not stand a contraband trade? If so, their ground is at least +defensible; for what chance of attraction would there be for the winking +Virgin in competition with him who could "make a young lady ascend to +the ceiling, and come slowly down like a parachute!"--a spiritual fact +I have heard from witnesses who really, so far as character went, might +challenge any incredulity. + +If the Cardinals were jealous of the Conjuror, the thing is intelligible +enough, and one must feel a certain degree of sympathy with the +old-established firm that had spent such enormous sums, and made such +stupendous preparations, when a pretender like this could come into +competition with them, without any other properties than could be +carried conveniently about him. + +But let us be practical The Pope's Government demanded of Mr Home that +he should have no dealings with the Evil One during his stay at Rome. +Now, I ask, what should we say of the efficacy of our police system +if we were to hear that the Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard lived in +nightly terror of the pickpockets who frequented that quarter, and +came to Parliament with a petition to accord him some greater +security against their depredations? Would not the natural reply be an +exclamation of astonishment that he who could summon to his aid every +alphabetical blue-coat that ever handled a truncheon, should deem any +increased security necessary to his peace? And so, would I ask, of what +avail these crowds of cardinals--these regiments of monsignori--these +battalions of bishops, Arch and simple?--of what use all the incense +and these chanted litanies, these eternal processions, and these saintly +shin-bones borne in costly array--if one poor mortal, supposed to live +on visiting terms with the Evil One, can strike such terror into the +whole army led on by Infallibility? + +If I had been possessed of any peculiar dread of coming unexpectedly +on the Devil--as the old ladies of New York used to feel long ago +about suddenly meeting with the British army--I should certainly have +comforted myself by the thought that I could always go and sit down on +the steps of the Vatican. It would immediately have occurred to me, that +as Holyrood offers its sanctuary against the sheriff, the Quirinal would +be the sure retreat against Old Nick; and I have even pictured to myself +the rage of his disappointed malice as he saw me sheltering safely +beneath a protection he dared not invade. And now I am told to +relinquish all the blessed enjoyment of this immunity; that the Pope and +the Cardinals and Antonelli himself are not a whit better off than the +rest of us; that if Mr Home gets into Rome, there is nothing to prevent +his having the Devil at his tea-parties. What an ignoble confession +is this! Who will step forward any longer and contend that this costly +system is to be maintained, and all these saintly intercessors to be +kept on the most expensive of all pension-lists, if a poor creature like +Home can overthrow it all? + +Can any one conceive such a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet +and purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing +before Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents to cross +the Tiber? + +Why--I speak, of course, in the ignorance of a laic--but, I ask, why not +fumigate him and cleanse him? When I saw him last, the process would not +have been so supererogatory. Why not exorcise and defy him? Why not say, +Come, and bring your friend if you dare; you shall see how we will treat +you. Only try it It is what we have been asking for nigh two thousand +years. Let the great culprit step forward and plead to his indictment. + +I can fancy the Pope saying this--I can picture to myself the proud +attitude of the Pontiff declaring, "I have had enough of these small +devilries, like Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel--I am sick of Mazzini +and his petty followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at once; +if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to a compromise." +This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that +he should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not +surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and +actually feared the debating powers of "Mr Potter of the Strikes." + + + + +GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. + +Nothing shows what a practical people we are more than our establishment +of insurances against railroad accidents. The spirit of commercial +enterprise, by which a man charters himself for a railroad voyage with +an insured cargo of his bones, ligaments, cartilage, and adipose tissue, +abundantly proves that we are nature's own traders and shopkeepers. + +Any ordinary people less imbued with Liverpool and Manchester notions +would have bestirred themselves how to prevent, or at least lessen, +the number of those casualties. They would have set to work to see what +provisions could be adopted to give greater security to travel. We, on +the contrary are too business-like to waste time on this inquiry. We are +convinced that, let us build ships ever so strong, there will still +be shipwrecks. So we feel assured that a certain number of railway +accidents, as they are called, will continue to occur--be as broad gauge +as you will! We accept the situation, therefore, as the French say, and +insure; that is to say, we book a bet at very long odds--say, three to a +thousand--that we shall be rolled up, cut in two, flattened into a thin +sheeting, and ground into an impalpable powder, between Croydon +and Brighton. If we arrive safe, the assurance office pockets a few +shillings; if we win our wager, our executor receives a thousand pounds. + +It is about the grimmest kind of gambling ever man heard of; and yet +we see folk of the most unquestionable propriety--dignitaries of the +Church, judges, civil and uncivil servants of the Crown, and scores of +others, whom nothing would tempt into the Cursaal at Ems or Baden, as +coolly as possible playing this terrific game, and backing themselves +heavily for a dorsal paralysis, a depressed fracture of the cranium, or +at least a compound dislocation of the hip-joint. + +Now, if the Protestant Church entertained what the Romanists call +cases of conscience, I should like greatly to ask, Is this right? Is it +justifiable to make a contingent profit out of your cerebral vertebrae +or your popliteal space? + +We have long been derided and scoffed at for making connubialism +marketable, and putting a price on a wife's infidelity, but it strikes +me this is something worse; for what, after all, is a rib--a false rib, +too--compared with the whole bony skeleton? + +"Allah is Allah," said the Turkish admiral to Lady Hester Stanhope, "but +I have got two anchors astern," showing that, with all his fatalism, he +did not despise what are technically called human means. So the reverend +Archdeacon, going down for his sea-baths, might say, "I'm not quite sure +they'll carry me safely, but it shall not be all misfortune--I'll take +out some of it in money." + +The system, however, has its difficulties; for though it is a round +game, the stakes are apportioned with reference to the rank and +condition of the winner--as, for instance, the Solicitor-General's +collarbone is worth a shoemaker's whole body, and a Judge's patella is +of more value than a dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This +is a tremendous pull against the company, who not only give long, but +actually incalculable odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can +be crumpled up for two hundred pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in +the coupe cannot be even concussed under a thousand; while if the noble +Duke in the express carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may be +positively astounding. + +This I certainly call hard--very hard. When you book a bet at Newmarket +you never have to consider the rank of your opponent, save as regards +his solvency. He may be a peer--he is very probably a publican--it is +perfectly immaterial to you; but not so here. The company is positively +staking against the incommensurable. They have no means of knowing +whether that large broad-shouldered man yonder is or is not a royal +duke; and when the telegraph announces a collision, it may chance that +the news has declared what will send every shareholder into bankruptcy, +or only graze them without hurting anybody. + +We all know how a number of what are technically termed serious people +went to Exeter Hall to listen to the music of the 'Traviata,' what no +possible temptation would have induced them to hear within the walls +of a theatre. I will not question the propriety of a matter only to +be settled by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the +words--for the airs were sung--were the same, the hearers were not +improbably in the enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though +they had gone for it to the Queen's Theatre. Now, may not these railway +insurances be something of the same kind? May it not be a means by which +deans and canons and other broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little +gambling without "going in" for Blind Hooky or Roulette? Regard for +decorum would prevent their sojourning at Homburg or Wiesbaden. They +could not, of course, be seen "punting" at the play-table at Ems; but +here is a legitimate game which all may join in, and where, certainly, +the anxiety that is said to impart the chief ecstasy to the gamester's +passion rises to the very highest It is heads and tails for a smashing +stake, and ought to interest the most sluggish of mortals. + +What a useful addition, then, would it be for one's Bradshaw to have a +tabular view of the "odds" on the different lines, so that a speculative +individual, desiring to provide for his family, might know where to +address himself with best chance of an accident! One can imagine an +assurance company puffing its unparalleled advantages and unrivalled +opportunity, when four excursion trains were to start at five minutes' +intervals, and the prospect of a smash was little short of a certainty. +"Great attraction! the late rains have injured the chief portion of the +line, so that a disaster is confidently looked for every hour. Make your +game, gentlemen--make your game; nothing received after the bell rings." + + + + +THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. + +Anything more absurd than the late debate in the House on the best means +of suppressing intemperance it is very hard to imagine. First of all, +in the van, came the grievance to be redressed; and we had a statistical +statement of all the gallons of strong drink consumed--all the moneys +diverted from the legitimate uses of the family--all the debauchees +who rolled drunk through our streets, and all the offences directly +originating in this degrading vice. Now, what conceivable order of mind +could prompt a man to engage in such a laborious research? Who either +doubts the enormity of drunkenness or its frequency? It is a theme that +we hear of incessantly. The pulpit rings with it, the press proclaims +it, the judges declare it in all their charges, and a special class of +lecturers have converted it into a profession. None denied the existence +of the disease; what we craved was the cure. Some discrepancy of opinion +prevailed as to whether the vice was on the increase or the decrease. +Statistics were given, and, of course, statistics supported each +assertion. This, however, was a mere skirmish--the grand battle was, How +was drunkenness to be put down? + +Mr Lawson's plan was: If four-fifths of the ratepayers of any district +were agreed that no spirituous liquors should be sold there, that such +should become a law, and no licence for their sale should be issued. The +mover of this proposal, curiously enough, called this "bringing public +opinion to bear on the question." What muddle of intelligence could +imagine this to be an exercise of public opinion I cannot imagine. +Such, however, is the plan. Drunkenness is to be repressed by making +it impossible. Did it never occur to the honourable gentleman, that all +legislative enactments whatever work not by enforcing what is good, but +by punishing what is evil? No law that ever was made would render people +honest and true to their engagements; but we arrive at a result not very +dissimilar by making dishonesty penal. + +The Decalogue declares: "Thou shalt not commit a murder." Human law +pronounces what will come of it if you do. It is, doubtless, very +imperfect legislation, but there is no help for it. We accept such +cases, however, as the best defences we can find for our social +condition, never for a moment presuming to think that we are rendering a +vice impossible by attaching to it a penalty. + +Mr Lawson, however, says, There shall be no drunkenness, because there +shall be no liquor. Why not extend the principle--for it is a great +discovery--and declare that, wherever four-fifths of the ratepayers of +a town or borough are of opinion that ingratitude is a great offence to +morals and a stain to human nature, in that district where they reside +there shall be no benefits conferred, nor any act of kindly aid or +assistance rendered by one man to his neighbour? I have no doubt that, +by such legislation, you would put down ingratitude. We use acts in the +moral world pretty much as in the physical; and it is entirely by the +impossibility of committing the offence that this gentleman proposes +to prevent its occurrence. But, in the name of common sense, why do we +inveigh against monasteries and nunneries?--why are we so severe on a +system that substitutes restraint for reason, and instead of correction +supplies coercion? Surely this plan is based on exactly the same +principle. Would it, I ask, cure a man of lying--I mean the vice, not +the practice--to place him in a community where no party was permitted +to talk? + +The example of the higher classes was somewhat ostentatiously paraded in +the debate, and members vied with each other in declaring how often +they dined out without meeting a drunkard in the company. This is very +gratifying and reassurring; but I am not aware that anybody ascribed +the happy change to the paucity of the decanters, and the difficulty of +getting the bottle; or whether it was that four-fifths of the party +had declared an embargo on the sherry, and realised the old proverb by +elevating necessity to the rank of virtue. + +Let me ask, who ever imagined that the best way to render a soldier +brave in battle was to take care that he never saw an enemy, and only +frequented the society of Quakers? And yet this is precisely what +Mr Lawson suggests. If his system be true, what becomes of all moral +discipline and all self-restraint? It is not through my own convictions +that I am sober; it is through no sense of the degradation that pertains +to drunkenness, and the loss of social estimation that follows it, that +I am temperate. It is because four-fifths of the ratepayers declare that +I shall have no drink nearer than the next parish; and this reminds of +another weak point in the plan. + +The Americans, who understand something of the evils of drink, on the +principle that made Doctor Panloss a good man, because he knew what +wickedness was, lately passed a law in Congress forbidding the use of +fermented liquors on board all the ships of war. It was one of those +sweeping pieces of legislation that men enact when driven to do +something, they know not exactly what, by the enormity of some great +abuse. Now, I have taken considerable pains to inquire how the plan +operates, and what success has waited on it. From every officer that I +have questioned I have received the same exact testimony: so long as the +ships are at sea the men only grumble at the privation; but once they +touch port, and boats' crews are permitted to go ashore, drunkenness +breaks out with tenfold violence. For a while all real discipline is at +an end; parties are despatched to bring back defaulters, who themselves +get reeling drunk; petty officers are insulted, and scenes of violence +enacted that give the unhappy locality where they have landed the +aspect of a town taken by assault and given up to pillage. I am not now +describing altogether from hearsay; I have witnessed something of what I +speak. + +As drunkenness, when the ship was at sea, was the rarest of all events, +and the good conduct of the men when on shore was the great object to +be obtained, this system may be, so far as the navy is concerned, +pronounced a decided failure. Whatever may be said about the policy of +sowing a man's wild oats, nobody, so far as I know, ever hinted that the +crop should be perennial. + +Legislation can no more make men temperate than it can make them cleanly +or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would +make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a +crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to +this well-intentioned gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is +unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How +is it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the +great essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle +man now could no more be found than the Plesiosaurus. He belongs to a +past totally and essentially irrevocable. + +And by what has this happy change been effected? Surely not by +withdrawing temptation. Not only have we an infinitely wider choice in +fluids than our forefathers, but they are served and ministered with +appliances far more tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the +higher tone of society the revolution is owing. Men saw that drunkenness +was disgraceful: it rendered society disorderly and riotous; it +interfered with all real conversational pleasure; it led to unmannerly +excesses, and to quarrels. A higher cultivation repudiated all these +things; and even they who, so to say, "liked their wine" too well, were +slow to disparage themselves by an indulgence which good taste declared +to be ungentlemanlike. + +Is it completely impossible to introduce some such sentiment as this +into other orders of society? We see it certainly in some foreign +countries--why not in our own? Radical orators are incessantly telling +us of the mental powers and the intellectual cultivation of the +working-classes, and I am well-disposed to believe there is much truth +in what they say. Why not then adapt, to men so highly civilised, some +of those sentiments that sway the classes more favoured of fortune? The +French artisan would deem it a disgrace to be drunk--so the Italian; +even the German would only go as far as a sort of beery bemuddlement +that made him a more ideal representative of the Vaterland: why must the +Englishman, of necessity, be the inferior in civilisation to these? I am +not willing to believe the task of such a reformation hopeless, though I +am perfectly convinced that no greater folly could be committed than to +attempt it by an Act of Parliament. + +When legislation has led men to be agreeable in society, unassuming in +manners, and gentle in deportment, it may make them temperate in their +liquor, but not before. The thing cannot be done in committee, nor by +a vote of the House. It is only to be accomplished by the filtering +process, by which the good habits of a nation drop down and permeate the +strata beneath; so that, in course of time, the whole mass, leavened +by the same ingredients, becomes one as completely in sentiment as in +interest. "Four-fifths of the ratepayers" will not effect this. After +all, Mr Lawson is only a second-hand discoverer. His bill was a mere +plagiarism from beginning to end. The whole text of his argument was +said and sung by poor Curran, full fifty odd years ago:-- + + "My children, be chaste till you're tempted; + While sober, be wise and discreet; + And humble your bodies with fasting + Whenever you've nothing to eat." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women +And Other Things In General, by Charles Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN *** + +***** This file should be named 22058-8.txt or 22058-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/5/22058/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General + Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 + +Author: Charles Lever + +Release Date: May 20, 2008 [EBook #22058] +Last Updated: September 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<h1> +CORNELIUS O’DOWD <br /> UPON MEN AND WOMEN <br /> AND OTHER THINGS IN +GENERAL +</h1> +<h2> +By Charles Lever +</h2> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<h5> +Originally Published In Blackwood’s Magazine +</h5> +<h4> +1864 +</h4> +<p> +<br /> <br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /> <br /> +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="toc"> +<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NOTICE. </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <big><b>CORNELIUS O’DOWD</b></big> </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> MYSELF. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF +SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> GARIBALDI’S WORSHIPPERS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE STRANGE MAN’S SORROW. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0010"> ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0012"> R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D’INDUSTRIE OF +OUR DAY. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0013"> GÀRIBÀLDI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0014"> A NEW INVESTMENT. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0015"> ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE DECLINE OF WHIST. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0017"> ONE OF OUR “TWO PUZZLES”. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0018"> A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0019"> A NEW HANSARD. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0020"> FOREIGN CLUBS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0021"> A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0022"> OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0023"> DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0024"> PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0025"> A GRUMBLE. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0026"> OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0027"> THE RULE NISI. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0028"> ON CLIMBING BOYS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0029"> LINGUISTS </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0030"> THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0031"> GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0032"> THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. </a> +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +<br /> <br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. +</h2> +<h3> +My dear Anster, +</h3> +<p> +If you knew how often I have thought of you as I was writing this book,—if +you knew how there rose before my mind memories of long ago—of those +glorious evenings with all those fine spirits, to think of whom is a +triumph even with all its sadness,—and if you knew how I long to +meet once more the few soldiers who survive of that “old guard,”—you +would see how naturally I dedicate my volume to him who was the best of +us. Accept it, I beg you, as a token of recollection and regard from your +affectionate friend, +</p> +<p> +CORNELIUS O’DOWD. +</p> +<p> +Lago Maggiore, July 20,1864. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +NOTICE. +</h2> +<h3> +AMIABLE AND ACCOMPLISHED READER, +</h3> +<p> +As I have very little to say for myself that is not said in some of my +opening pages, there is no need that I should delay you on the threshold. +</p> +<p> +You will learn, if you take the trouble, by what course of events I came +to my present pursuit, converting myself into what a candid, but not +complimentary, friend has called “a diverting Vagabond.” + </p> +<p> +The fact was, I gave the world every reasonable opportunity of knowing +that they had a remarkable man amongst them, but, with a stupidity all +their own, they wouldn’t see it; so that when the solicitor who once gave +me a brief died—I believe it was a softening of the brain—I +burned my wig and retired from the profession. +</p> +<p> +Now, let people say what they may, it is by no means easy to invent a new +line of life; and even if you should, there are scores of people ready to +start up and seize on your discovery; and as I write these lines I am by +no means sure that to-morrow will not see some other Cornelius O’Dowd +inviting the public to a feast of wisdom and life-knowledge, with perhaps +a larger stock than my own of “things not generally known.” I will +disparage no man’s wares. There is, I feel assured, a market for us all. +My rivals, or my imitators, whichever you like to call them, may prove +superior to me; they maybe more ingenious, more various, more witty, or +more profound; but take my word for it, bland Header, there is always +something in the original tap, whether the liquor be Harvey sauce or L.L. +whisky, and such is mine. You are, in coming to me, frequenting the old +house; and if I could only descend to it, I could print you more +testimonials to success than Mr Morrison’s of the pills, or the other man +of cod-liver oil, but I scorn to give the names, imparted as they were in +secret gratitude. One only trick of the trade I will condescend to—it +is to assure you that you had need to beware of counterfeits, and that no +O’Dowderies are genuine except signed by me. +</p> +<p> +My heart is broke with requests for my autograph. Will a sympathising +public accept the above—which, of course, will be immediately +photographed. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h1> +CORNELIUS O’DOWD +</h1> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +MYSELF. +</h2> +<p> +Bland Reader,—If you ever look into the Irish papers—and I +hope you are not so exclusive regarding them as is Mr Cobden with the +‘Times’—you will see that, under the title, “Landed Estates Court, +County Mayo,” Judge Dobbs has just sold the town and lands of +Kilmuray-nabachlish, Ballaghy, and Gregnaslattery, the property of +Cornelius O’Dowd, Esq. of Dowd’s Folly, in the same county. +</p> +<p> +Now the above-recited lands, measuring seven hundred and fourteen acres, +two roods, and eleven perches, statute measure, were mine, and I am the +Cornelius O’Dowd, Esq., referred to in the same paragraph. +</p> +<p> +Though it is perfectly true that, what between mortgages, settlement +claims, and bonds, neither my father nor myself owned these lands any more +than we did the island of Jamaica, it was a great blow to me to be sold +out; for, somehow or other, one can live a long time in Ireland on +parchment—I mean on the mere documents of an estate that has long +since passed away; but if you come once to an open sale and Judge Dobbs, +there’s an end of you, and you’ll not get credit for a pair of shoes the +day after. +</p> +<p> +My present reason for addressing you does not require that I should go +into my family history, or mention more of myself than that I was called +to the Bar in ‘42; that I stood an unsuccessful election for Athlone; that +I served as a captain in the West Coast Rifles; that I married a young +lady of great personal attractions; and completed my misfortunes by taking +the chairmanship of the Vichnasehneshee silver mines, that very soon left +me with nothing but copper in my own pocket, and sent me to Judge Dobbs +and his Court on the Inns Quay. +</p> +<p> +Like the rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would +“do something” for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, and I +have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord +Clarendon’s day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly with +me, none said, “O’Dowd, we must do something for you;” and if it was to +rain commissionerships in lunacy, or prison inspectorships, I don’t +believe one would fall upon C. O’D. I never knew rightly how it was, but +though I was always liked at the Bar mess, and made much of on circuit, I +never got a brief. People were constantly saying to me, “Con, if you were +to do this, that, or t’other,” you’d make a hit; but it was always +conditional on my being somewhere, or doing something that I never had +attempted before. +</p> +<p> +It was clear, if I was the right man, I wasn’t in the right place; and +this was all the more provoking, because, let me do what I would, some one +was sure to exclaim, “Con, my boy, don’t try that; it is certainly not +your line.” “What a capital agent for a new assurance company you’d be!” + “What a success you’d have had on the stage! You’d have played Sir Lucius +better than any living actor. Why don’t you go on the boards? Why not +start a penny newspaper? Why not give readings?” I wonder why they didn’t +tell me to turn organist or a painter in oils. +</p> +<p> +“You’re always telling us how much you know of the world, Mr O’Dowd,” said +my wife; “I wish you could turn the knowledge to some account.” + </p> +<p> +This was scarcely generous, to say the least of it. +</p> +<p> +Mrs O’D. knew well that I was vain of the quality—that I regarded it +as a sort of specialty. In fact, deeming, with the poet, that the proper +study of mankind was man, I had devoted a larger share of my life to the +inquiry than quite consisted with professional advancement; and while +others pored over their Blackstone, I was “doing Baden;” and instead of +term reports and Crown cases, I was diverting myself in the Oberland or on +the Lago Maggiore. +</p> +<p> +“And with all your great knowledge of life,” continued she, “I don’t +exactly see what it has done for you.” + </p> +<p> +Now, Mrs O’Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn’t waste my +time in arguing with her—I didn’t crush her, as I might, by telling +her that the very highest and noblest of a man’s acquirements are, <i>ipso +facto</i>, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all +classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that Greek +and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar fractions +and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, Mrs O’D. would +have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the rule-of-three +against Sophocles and “all his works.” I simply replied, with that dignity +which is natural to me, “I <i>am</i> proud of my knowledge of life; I do +recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture that makes up +human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to advertise my discovery +for sale, like Holloway’s Pills or somebody’s cod-liver oil.” “Perhaps you +knew nobody would buy it,” cried she, and flounced out of the room, the +bang of the door being one of the “epigrams in action” wives are skilled +in. +</p> +<p> +Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself to +those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of their +own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure in all +it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering delighted +over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, for years, +imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been my gallery, with +all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm colouring, and its cold +tints. +</p> +<p> +It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every +“handling,” and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original. +“And can it be possible,” cried I aloud, “that while picture-dealers revel +in fortune—fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured +canvass—that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist—I, +who read men as I read a French comedy—that I should be obliged to +deny myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, +and that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me +than mere physic?” + </p> +<p> +I do not—I will not—I cannot, believe it. No class of persons +could be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich +argosy that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the +Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no +insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no +dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these I +purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the +possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into +Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that I +mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more dearly +than I intend to dispose of it. <i>Haud ignarus mali</i>; I am willing to +tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. “Don’t tell +me of your successes,” said a great physician to his colleague, “tell me +of your blunders; tell me of the people you’ve killed.” I am ready to do +this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and more, I will +make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may attach to an +absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may subject me to +laughter. +</p> +<p> +You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but +what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my +wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you +that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or +three in America; that I have been everywhere—eaten of everything—seen +everything. There’s not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn’t grin +a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Frères to the Wilde Mann +doesn’t trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers speak up when I +stroll into the Chamber, and <i>prima donnas</i> soar above the orchestra, +and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit. +</p> +<p> +I don’t like—I declare to you I do not like—saying these +things; it smacks of vanity. Now for my plan. I purpose to put these my +gifts at your disposal The year before us will doubtless be an eventful +one. What between Danes, Poles, and Italians, there must be a row +somewhere. The French are very eager for war; and the Austrians, as Paddy +says, “are blue-moulded for want of a beatin’.” There will be grand +“battle-pieces” to paint; but, better than these, portraits, groups, +“tableaux de genre”—Teniers bits, too, at the porch of an ale-house, +and warm little interiors, in the style of Mieris. I shall be instructive +at times—very instructive; and whenever I am very nice and dull, be +assured that I’m “full of information, and know my subject thoroughly.” + </p> +<p> +As “your own correspondent,” I am free to go wherever I please. I have +left Mrs O’D. in Ireland, and I revel in an Arcadian liberty. These are +all my credentials; and if with their aid I can furnish you any amusement +as to the goings-on of the world and its wife, or the doings of that +amiable couple in politics, books, theatres, or socialities, I seek for +nothing more congenial to my taste, nor more adapted to my nature, as a +bashful Irishman. +</p> +<p> +If I will not often obtrude, I will not altogether avoid, my personal +experiences; for there is this to be said, that no testimony is worth much +unless we know something of the temper, the tastes, and the character of +the witness. We have all heard, for instance, of the gentleman who +couldn’t laugh at Munden’s drolleries on the stage for thinking of a debt +of ten pounds that the actor owed him: and this same spirit has a great +deal to do—far more than we like to own—with our estimate of +foreign countries. It is so hard to speak well of the climate where we had +that horrible rheumatism, or laud the honesty of a people when we think of +that rascally scoundrel of the Hotel d’Odessa. For these reasons I mean to +come into the witness-box occasionally, and give you frankly, not merely +my opinions, but the way they were come by. I don’t affect to be superior +to prejudices; I have as many of these as a porcupine has bristles. +There’s all the egotism I mean to inflict on you, unless it comes under +the guise of an incident—“a circumstance which really occurred to +the author”—and now, <i>en route</i>. +</p> +<p> +I wonder am I right in thinking that the present race of travelling +English know less about the Continent and foreigners generally than their +predecessors of, say, five-and-twenty years ago. Railroads and rapid +travelling might be one cause; another is, that English is now more +generally spoken by all foreigners than formerly; and it may be taken as a +maxim, that nothing was ever asked or answered in broken phraseology that +was worth the hearing. People with a limited knowledge of a strange +language do not say what they <i>wish</i>, but what they <i>can</i>; and +there is no name for the helplessness of him who is tied up in his +preter-pluperfect tense. Now we English are not linguists; even our +diplomatists are remarkable for their little proficiency in French. I’m +not sure that we don’t benefit by this in the long-run. “Reden ist silber, +aber Schweigen ist gold”—“Speech is silver, but silence is gold,” + says the German adage; and what a deal of wisdom have I seen attributed to +a man who was posed by his declensions into a listener! One of the only +countrymen of my own who has made a great career lately in public life is +not a little indebted to deafness for it. He was so unlike those rash, +impetuous, impatient Irish, who <i>would</i> interrupt—he listened, +or seemed to listen, and he even smiled at the sarcasms that he did not +hear. +</p> +<p> +Listening, if we did but know it, sits more gracefully on us than speech, +when that speech involves the denial of genders, and the utter confusion +of all cases and tenses. +</p> +<p> +Next to holding their tongues, there’s another thing I wish you English +would do abroad, which is, to dress like sane and responsible people. Men +are simply absurd; but the women, with their ill-behaved hoops and short +petticoats, are positively indecent; but the greatest of all their +travelling offences is the proneness to form acquaintance at <i>tables-d’hôte</i>. +</p> +<p> +It is, first of all, a rank indiscretion for any but men to dine at these +places. They are almost, as a rule, the resort of all that is disreputable +in both sexes. You are sure to eat badly, and in the very worst of +company. My warning is, however, meant for my countrywomen only: men can, +or at least ought, to take care of themselves. As for myself, don’t be +shocked; but I do like doubtful company—that is, I am immensely +interested by all that class of people which the world calls adventurers, +whether the same be railroad speculators, fortune-hunters, discoverers of +inexhaustible mines, or Garibaldians. Your respectable man, with a +pocket-book well stored with his circular notes, and his passport in +order, is as uninteresting as a “Treckshuyt” on a Dutch canal; but your +“martyr to circumstance” is like a smart felucca in a strong Levanter; and +you can watch his course—how he shakes out his reefs or shortens +sail—how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his colours—with +an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of cleverness—what +stores of practical ability—were lost to the world in these +out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently, play every game +well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot, especially with the +pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass of qualities that win +success! and, what often is harder, win goodwill in life! There they are, +by some unhappy twist in their natures, preferring the precarious +existence of the race-course or the billiard-table; while others, with +about a tithe of their talents, are high in place and power. I met one of +these men to-day, and a strong specimen of the class, well dressed, well +whiskered, very quiet in manner, almost subdued in tone, but with a slight +restlessness in his eye that was very significant. We found ourselves at +table, over our coffee, when the others had left, and fell into +conversation. He declined my offered cigar with much courtesy, preferring +to smoke little cigarettes of his own making; and really the manufacture +was very adroit, and, in its way, a study of the maker’s habits. We talked +over the usual topics—the bad dinner we had just eaten, the +strange-looking company, the discomfort of the hotel generally, and +suchlike. +</p> +<p> +“Have we not met before?” asked he, after a pause. “If I don’t mistake, we +dined together aboard of Leslie’s yacht, the Fawn.” + </p> +<p> +I shook my head. “Only knew Sir Francis Leslie by name; never saw the +Fawn.” + </p> +<p> +The shot failed, but there was no recoil in his gun, and he merely bowed a +half apology. +</p> +<p> +“A yacht is a mistake,” added he, after another interval. “One is obliged +to take, not the men one wants, but the fellows who can bear the sea. +Leslie, for instance, had such a set that I left him at Messina. Strange +enough, they took us for pirates there.” + </p> +<p> +“For pirates!” + </p> +<p> +“Yes. There were three fishing-boats—what they call <i>Bilancelle</i>—some +fifteen or sixteen miles out at sea, and when they saw us coming along +with all canvass set, they hauled up their nets and ran with all speed for +shore. Rather absurd, wasn’t it? but, as I told Leslie about his friends, +‘the blunder wasn’t so great after all; there was only a vowel between +Raffs and Riffs.’” + </p> +<p> +The disparagement of “questionable people” is such an old device of +adventurers, that I was really surprised such a master of his art as my +present friend would condescend to it. It belonged altogether to an +inferior practitioner; and, indeed, he quickly saw the effect it had +produced upon me, as he said, “Not that I care a straw for the fellows I +associate with; my theory is, a gentleman can know any one.” + </p> +<p> +Richard was himself again as he uttered this speech, lying well back in +his chair, and sending a thin cloud of incense from the angle of his +mouth. +</p> +<p> +“What snobs they were in Brummel’s day, for instance, always asking if +this or that man was fit to be known! Why, sir, it was the very fellows +they tabooed were the cream of the set; ‘it was the cards they threw out +were the trumps.’” + </p> +<p> +The illustration came so pat that he smiled as he perceived by a twinkle +of my eye that I appreciated it. +</p> +<p> +“My father,” continued he, “knew Brummel well, and he told me that his +grand defect was a want of personal courage—the very quality, of all +others, his career required. His impertinences always broke down when +brought to this test. I remember an instance he mentioned. +</p> +<p> +“Amongst the company that frequented Carlton House was a certain old +Admiral P———, whom the Prince was fond of inviting, +though he did not possess a single agreeable quality, or any one convivial +gift, except a great power of drinking the very strongest port without its +producing the slightest show of effect upon him. +</p> +<p> +“One night Brummel, evidently bent on testing the old sailor’s head, +seated himself next him, making it his business to pass the decanters as +briskly as he could. The admiral asked nothing better; filled and drank +bumpers. Not content with this legitimate test, Brummel watched his +opportunity when the admiral’s head was turned, and filled his glass up to +the brim. Four or five times was the trick repeated, and with success; +when at last the admiral, turning quickly around, caught him in the very +act, with the decanter still in his hand. Fixing his eyes upon him with +the fierceness of a tiger, the old man said, ‘Drink it, sir—drink +it!’ and so terrified was Brummel by the manner and the look that he +raised the glass to his lips and drained it, while all at the table were +convulsed with laughter.” + </p> +<p> +The Brummel school—that is, the primrose-glove adventurers—were +a very different order of men from the present-day fellows, who take a +turn in Circassia or China, or a campaign with Garibaldi; and who, with +all their defects, are men of mettle and pluck and daring. Of these latter +I found my new acquaintance to be one. +</p> +<p> +He sketched off the early part of the “expedition” graphically enough for +me, showing the disorder and indiscipline natural to a force where every +nationality of Europe was represented, and not by its most favourable +types. +</p> +<p> +“I had an Irish servant,” said he, “whose blunders would fill a volume. +His prevailing impression, perhaps not ill-founded on the whole, was, that +we all had come out for pillage; and while a certain reserve withheld most +of us from avowing this fact, he spoke of it openly and freely, +expatiating admiringly on Captain This and Major That, who had done a fine +stroke of work in such a store, or such another country-house. As for his +blunders, they never ceased. I was myself the victim of an absurd one. On +the march from Melazzo I got a severe strain in the chest by my horse +falling and rolling over me. No bone was broken, but I was much bruised, +and a considerable extravasation of blood took place under the skin. Of +course I could not move, and I was provided with a sort of litter, and +slung between two mules. The doctor prescribed a strong dose of laudanum, +which set me to sleep, and despatched Peter back to Melazzo with an order +for a certain ointment, which he was to bring without delay, as the case +was imminent; this was impressed upon him, as the fellow was much given to +wandering off, when sent of a message, after adventures of his own. +</p> +<p> +“Fully convinced that I was in danger, away went Peter, very sad about me, +but even more distressed lest he should forget what he was sent for. He +kept repeating the words over and over as he went, till they became by +mere repetition something perfectly incomprehensible, so that when he +reached Melazzo nobody could make head or tail of his message. Group after +group gathered about and interrogated him, and at last, by means of +pantomime, discovered that his master was very ill. Signs were made to +inquire if bleeding was required, or if it was a case for amputation, but +he still shook his head in negative. ‘Is he dying?’ asked one, making a +gesture to indicate lying down. Peter assented. ‘Oh, then it is the <i>unzione +estrema</i> he wants!’ ‘That’s it,’ cried Peter, joyfully—‘unzione +it is.’ Two priests were speedily found and despatched; and I awoke out of +a sound sleep under a tree to see three lighted candles on each side of +me, and two priests in full vestments standing at my feet and gabbling +away in a droning sort of voice, while Peter blubbered and wrung his hands +unceasingly. A jolly burst of laughter from me soon dispelled the whole +illusion, and Peter had to hide himself for shame for a week after.” + </p> +<p> +“What became of the fellow—was he killed in the campaign?” + </p> +<p> +“Killed! nothing of the kind; he rose to be an officer, served on Nullo’s +staff, and is at this very hour in Poland, and, if I mistake not, a +major.” + </p> +<p> +“Men of this stamp make occasionally great careers,” said I, carelessly. +</p> +<p> +“No, sir,” replied he, very gravely. “To do anything really brilliant, the +adventurer must have been a gentleman at one time or other: the common +fellow stops short at petty larcenies; the man of good blood always goes +in for the mint.” + </p> +<p> +“There was, then,” asked I, “a good deal of what the Yankees call +‘pocketing’ in that campaign of Garibaldi’s?” + </p> +<p> +“Less than one might suppose. Have you not occasionally seen men at a +dinner-party pass this and refuse that, waiting for the haunch, or the +pheasant, or the blackcock that they are certain is coming, when all of a +sudden the jellies and ices make their appearance, and the curtain falls? +So it was with many of us; we were all waiting for Rome, and licking our +lips for the Vatican and the Cardinals’ palaces, when in came the +Piedmontese and finished the entertainment. If I meet you here to-morrow, +I can tell you more about this;” and so saying he arose, gave me an easy +nod, and strolled away. +</p> +<p> +“Who is that most agreeable gentleman who took his coffee with me?” asked +I of the waiter as I entered the <i>salle</i>. +</p> +<p> +“It’s the Generale Inglese, who served with Garibaldi.” + </p> +<p> +“And his name?” + </p> +<p> +“Ah, <i>per bacco!</i> I never heard his name—Garibaldi calls him +Giorgio, and the ladies who call here to take him out to drive now and +then always say Giorgino—not that he’s so very small, for all that.” + </p> +<p> +My Garibaldian friend failed in his appointment with me this morning. We +were to have gone together to a gallery, or a collection of ancient +armour, or something of this sort, but he probably saw, as your clever +adventurer <i>will</i> see, with half an eye, that I could be no use to +him—that I was a wayfarer like himself on life’s highroad; and +prudently turned round on his side and went to sleep again. +</p> +<p> +There is no quality so distinctive in this sort of man or woman—for +adventurer has its feminine—as the rapid intuition with which he +seizes on all available people, and throws aside all the unprofitable +ones. A money-changer detecting a light napoleon is nothing to it. What +are the traits by which they guide their judgment—what the tests by +which they try humanity, I do not know, but that they do read a stranger +at first sight is indisputable. That he found out Cornelius O’Dowd wasn’t +a member of the British Cabinet, or a junior partner in Baring’s, was, you +may sneeringly conjecture, no remarkable evidence of acuteness. But why +should he discover the fact—fact it is—that he’d never be one +penny the richer by knowing me, and that intercourse with me was about as +profitable as playing a match at billiards “for the table”? +</p> +<p> +Say what people will against roguery and cheating, rail as they may at the +rapacity and rascality one meets with, I declare and protest, after a good +deal of experience, that the world is a very poor world to him who is not +the mark of some roguery! When you are too poor to be cheated, you are too +insignificant to be cherished; and the man that is not worth humbugging +isn’t very far from bankruptcy. +</p> +<p> +It gave me a sort of shock, therefore, when I saw that my friend took this +view of me, and I strolled down moodily enough to the Chamber of Deputies. +Turin is a dreary city for a lounger; even a resident finds that he must +serve a seven years’ apprenticeship before he gets any footing in its +stiff ungenial society—for of all Italians, nothing socially is less +graceful than a Piedmontese. They have none of the courteous civility, +none of the urbane gentleness of the peninsular Italians. They are cold, +reserved, proud, and eminently awkward; not the less so, perhaps, that +their habitual tongue is the very vilest jargon that ever disfigured a +human mouth. Of course this is an efficient barrier against intercourse +with strangers; and though French is spoken in society, it bears about the +same relation to that language at Paris, as what is called pigeon-English +at Hong-Kong does to the tongue in use in Belgravia. +</p> +<p> +When I reached the Palazzo Carignan, as the Chamber is called, the <i>séance</i> +was nearly over, and a scene of considerable uproar prevailed. There had +been a somewhat sharp altercation between General Bixio and the “Left,” + and M. Mordini had repeatedly appealed to the President to make the +General recall some offensive epithets he had bestowed on the “party of +movement.” There were the usual cries and gesticulations, the shouts of +derision, the gestures of menace; and, above all, the tinkle-tinkle of the +Presidents bell, which was no more minded than the summons for a waiter in +an Irish inn; and on they went in this hopeless way, till some one, I +don’t know why, cried out, “That’s enough—we are satisfied;” by +which it seemed that somebody had apologised, but for what, or how, or to +whom, I have not the very vaguest conception. +</p> +<p> +With all their depreciation of France, the Italians are the most +persistent imitators of Frenchmen, and the Chamber was exactly a copy of +the French Chamber in the old Louis Philippe days—all violence, +noise, sensational intensity, and excitement. +</p> +<p> +I have often heard public speakers mention the difficulty of adjusting the +voice to the size of a room in which they found themselves for the first +time, and the remark occurred to me as figuratively displaying one of the +difficulties of Italian public men. The speakers in reality never clearly +knew how far their words were to carry—whether they spoke to the +Chamber or to the Country. +</p> +<p> +Is there or is there not a public opinion in Italy? Can the public speaker +direct his words over the heads of his immediate surrounders to countless +thousands beyond them? If he cannot, Parliament is but a debating-club, +with the disadvantage of not being able to select the subjects for +discussion. +</p> +<p> +The glow of patriotism is never rightly warm, nor is the metal of party +truly malleable, without the strong blast of a public opinion. +</p> +<p> +The Turin Chamber has no echo in the country; and, so far as I see, the +Italians are far more eager to learn what is said in the French Parliament +than in their own. +</p> +<p> +I remember an old waiter at the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin, who got a prize +in the lottery and retired into private life, but who never could hear a +bell ring without crying out, “Coming, sir.” The Italians remind me +greatly of him: they have had such a terrible time of flunkeyism, that +they start at every summons, no matter what hand be on the bell-rope. +</p> +<p> +To be sure the French did bully them awfully in the last war. Never was an +alliance more dearly paid for. We ourselves are not a very compliant or +conciliating race, but we can remember what it cost us to submit to French +insolence and pretension in the Crimea; and yet we did submit to it, not +always with a good grace, but in some fashion or other. +</p> +<p> +Here comes my Garibaldino again, and with a proposal to go down to Genoa +and look at the Italian fleet. I don’t suppose that either of us know much +of the subject; and indeed I feel, in my ignorance, that I might be a +senior Lord of the Admiralty—but that is only another reason for the +inquiry. “One is nothing,” says Mr Puff, “if he ain’t critical” So Heaven +help the Italian navy under the conjoint commentaries of myself and my +friend! Meanwhile, and before we start, one word more of Turin. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. +</h2> +<p> +Here I am at the “Feder” in Turin—as dirty a hotel, be it said +passingly, as you’ll find out of Ireland, and seventeen long years it is +since I saw it first. Italy has changed a good deal in the meanwhile—changed +rulers, landmarks, systems, and ideas; not so my old acquaintance, the +Feder! There’s the dirty waiter flourishing his dirtier napkin; and +there’s the long low-ceilinged <i>table-d’hôte</i> room, stuffy and smoky, +and suffocating as ever; and there are the little grinning coteries of +threes and fours round small tables soaking their rolls in chocolate, and +puffing their “Cavours,” with faces as innocent of soap as they were +before the war of the liberation. After all, perhaps, I’d have no +objection if some friend would cry out, “Why, Con, my boy, you don’t look +a day older than when I saw you here in ‘46, I think! I protest you have +not changed in the least. What <i>elixir vitæ</i> have you swallowed, old +fellow? Not a wrinkle, nor a grey hair,” and so on. And yet seventeen +years taken out of the working part of a man’s life—that period that +corresponds with the interval between after breakfast, we’ll say, and an +hour before dinner—makes a great gap in existence; for I did very +little as a boy, being not an early riser, perhaps, and now, in the +evening of my days, I have got a theory that a man ought to dine early and +never work after it. Though I’m half ashamed, on so short an acquaintance +with my reader, to mention a personal incident, I can scarcely avoid—indeed +I cannot avoid—relating a circumstance connected with my first visit +to the “Hotel Feder.” + </p> +<p> +I was newly married when I came abroad for a short wedding-tour. The world +at that time required new-married people to lay in a small stock of +Continental notions, to assist their connubiality and enable them to wear +the yoke with the graceful ease of foreigners; and so Mrs O’D. and I +started with one heart, one passport, and—what’s not so pleasant—one +hundred pounds, to comply with this ordinance. Of course, once over the +border—once in France—it was enough. So we took up our abode +in a very unpretending little hotel of Boulogne-sur-Mer called “La Cour de +Madrid,” where we boarded for the moderate sum of eleven francs fifty +centimes per diem—the odd fifty being saved by my wife not taking +the post-prandial cup of coffee and rum. +</p> +<p> +There was not much to see at Boulogne, and we soon saw it. For a week or +so Mrs O’D. used to go out muffled like one of the Sultan’s five hundred +wives, protesting that she’d surely be recognised; but she grew out of the +delusion at last, and discovered that our residence at the Cour de Madrid +as effectually screened us from all remark or all inquiry as if we had +taken up our abode in the Catacombs. +</p> +<p> +Now when one has got a large stock of any commodity on hand—I don’t +care what it is—there’s nothing so provoking as not to find a +market. Mrs O’D.‘s investment was bashfulness. She was determined to be +the most timid, startled, modest, and blushing creature that ever wore +orange-flowers; and yet there was not a man, woman, or child in the whole +town that cared to know whether the act for which she left England was a +matrimony or a murder. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you hate this place, Cornelius?”—she never called me Con in +the honeymoon. “Isn’t it the dullest, dreariest hole you have ever been +in?” + </p> +<p> +“Not with you.” + </p> +<p> +“Then don’t yawn when you say so. I abhor it. It’s dirty, it’s vulgar, +it’s dear.” + </p> +<p> +“No, no. It ain’t dear, my love; don’t say, dear.” + </p> +<p> +“Billiards perhaps, and filthy cigars, and that greenish bitter—anisette, +I think they call it—are cheap enough, perhaps; but these are all +luxuries I can’t share in.” + </p> +<p> +Here was the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that presaged the first +connubial hurricane. A married friend—one of much experience and +long-suffering—had warned me of this, saying, “Don’t fancy you’ll +escape, old fellow; but do the way the Ministry do about Turkey—put +the evil day off; diplomatise, promise, cajole, threaten a bit if needs +be, but postpone;” and, strong with these precepts, I negotiated, as the +phrase is, and, with a dash of reckless liberality that I tremble at now +as I record it, I said, “You’ve only to say where—nothing but where +to, and I’ll take you—up the Rhine, down the Danube, Egypt, the +Cataracts———” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t want to go so far,” said she, dryly. “Italy will do.” + </p> +<p> +This was a stunner. I hoped the impossible would have stopped her, but she +caught at the practicable, and foiled me. +</p> +<p> +“There’s only one objection,” said I, musing. +</p> +<p> +“And what may that be? Not money, I hope.” + </p> +<p> +“Heaven forbid—no. It’s the language. We get on here tolerably well, +for the waiter speaks broken English; but in Italy, dearest, English is +unknown.” + </p> +<p> +“Let us learn Italian, then. My aunt Groves said I had a remarkable talent +for languages.” + </p> +<p> +I groaned inwardly at this, for the same aunt Groves had vouched for a sum +of seventeen hundred and odd pounds as her niece’s fortune, but which was +so beautifully “tied up,” as they called it, that neither Chancellor nor +Master were ever equal to the task of untying it. +</p> +<p> +“Of course, dearest, let us learn Italian;” and I thought how I’d crush a +junior counsel some day with a smashing bit of Dante. +</p> +<p> +We started that same night—travelled on day after day—crossed +Mont Cenis in a snow-storm, and reached the Feder as wayworn and +wretched-looking a pair as ever travelled on an errand of bliss and +beatitude. +</p> +<p> +“In for a penny” is very Irish philosophy, but I can’t help that; so I +wrote to my brother Peter to sell out another hundred for me out of the +“Threes,” saying “dear Paulina’s health required a little change to a +milder climate” (it was snowing when I wrote, and the thermometer over the +chimneypiece at 9° Reaumur, with windows that wouldn’t shut, and a marble +floor without carpet)—“that the balmy air of Italy” (my teeth +chattered as I set it down) “would soon restore her; and indeed already +she seemed to feel the change.” That she did, for she was crouching over a +pan of charcoal ashes, with a railroad wrapper over her shoulders. +</p> +<p> +It’s no use going over what is in every one’s experience on first coming +south of the Alps—the daily, hourly difficulty of not believing that +you have taken a wrong road and got into Siberia; and strangest of all it +is to see how little the natives think of it. I declare I often thought +soap must be a great refrigerant, and I wish some chemist would inquire +into the matter. +</p> +<p> +“Are we ever to begin this blessed language?” said Mrs O’D. to me, after +four days of close arrest—snow still falling and the thermometer +going daily down, down, lower and lower. Now I had made inquiries the day +before from the landlord, and learned that he knew of a most competent +person, not exactly a regular teacher who would insist upon our going to +work in school fashion, but a man of sense and a gentleman—indeed, a +person of rank and title, with whom the world had gone somewhat badly, and +who was at that very moment suffering for his political opinions, far in +advance, as they were, of those of his age. +</p> +<p> +“He’s a friend of Gioberti,” whispered the landlord in my ear, while his +features became animated with the most intense significance. Now, I had +never so much as heard of Gioberti, but I felt it would be a deep disgrace +to confess it, and so I only exclaimed, with an air of half-incredulity, +“Indeed!” + </p> +<p> +“As true as I’m here,” replied he. “He usually drops in about noon to read +the ‘Opinione,’ and, if you permit, I’ll send him up to you. His name is +Count Annibale Castrocaro.” + </p> +<p> +I hastened forthwith to Mrs O’D., to apprise her of the honour that +awaited us; repeating, a little <i>in extenso</i>, all that the host had +said, and finishing with the stunning announcement, “and a friend of +Gio-berti.” Mrs O’Dowd never flinched under the shock, and, too proud to +own her ignorance, she pertly remarked, “I don’t think the more of him for +that.” + </p> +<p> +I felt that she had beat me, and I sat down abashed and humiliated. +Meanwhile Mrs O’D. retired to make some change of dress; but, reappearing +after a while in her smartest morning toilette, and a very coquettish +little cap, with cherry-coloured ribbons, I saw what the word Count had +done at once. +</p> +<p> +Just as the clock struck twelve, the waiter flung wide the double doors of +our room, and announced, as pompously as though for royalty, “II Signor +Conte di Castrocaro,” and there entered a tall man slightly stooping in +the shoulders, with a profusion of the very blackest hair on his neck and +shoulders, his age anything from thirty-five to forty-eight, and his dress +a shabby blue surtout, buttoned to the throat and reaching below the +knees. He bowed and slid, and bowed again, till he came opposite where my +wife sat, and then, with rather a dramatic sort of grace, he lifted her +hand to his lips and kissed it. She reddened a little, but I saw she +wasn’t displeased with the air of homage that accompanied the ceremony, +and she begged him to be seated. +</p> +<p> +I own I was disappointed with the Count, his hair was so greasy, and his +hands so dirty, and his general get-up so uncared for; but Mrs O’D. talked +away with him very pleasantly, and he replied in his own broken English, +making little grimaces and smiles and gestures, and some very tender +glances, do duty where his parts of speech failed him. In fact, I watched +him as a sort of psychological phenomenon, and I arrived at the conclusion +that this friend of Gioberti’s was a very clever artist. +</p> +<p> +All was speedily settled for the lessons—hour, terms, and mode of +instruction. It was to be entirely conversational, with a little +theme-writing, no getting by heart, no irregular verbs, no declensions, no +genders. I did beg hard for a little grammar, but he wouldn’t hear of it. +It was against his “system,” and so I gave in. +</p> +<p> +We began the next day, but the Count ignored me altogether, directing +almost all his attentions to Mrs O’D.; and as I had already some small +knowledge of the elementary part of the language, I was just as well +pleased that she should come up, as it were, to my level. From this cause +I often walked off before the lesson was over, and sometimes, indeed, I +skulked it altogether, finding the system, as well as Gioberti’s friend, +to be an unconscionable bore. Mrs O’D., on the contrary, displayed an +industry I never believed her to possess, and would pass whole evenings +over her exercises, which often covered several sheets of letter-paper. +</p> +<p> +We had now been about five weeks in Turin, when my brother wrote to +request I would come back as speedily as I could, that a case in which I +held a brief was high in the cause-list, and would be tried very early in +the session. I own I was not sorry at the recall. I detested the dreary +life I was leading. I hated Turin and its bad feeding and bad theatres, +its rough wines and its rougher inhabitants. +</p> +<p> +“Did you tell the Count we are off on Saturday?” asked I of Mrs O’D. +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” said she, dryly. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose he’s inconsolable,” said I, with a sneer. +</p> +<p> +“He’s very sorry we’re going, if you mean that, Mr O’Dowd; and so am I +too.” + </p> +<p> +“Well, so am not I; and you may call me a Dutchman if you catch me here +again.” + </p> +<p> +“The Count hopes you will permit him to see you. He asked this morning +whether he might call on you about four o’clock.” + </p> +<p> +“Yes, I’ll see him with sincere pleasure for once,” I cried; “since it is +to say good-bye to him.” + </p> +<p> +I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count was +announced and shown in. “Excuse me, Count,” said I, “for receiving you so +informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to England, and no +time to spare.” + </p> +<p> +“I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as +it is,” said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never +observed in him before. +</p> +<p> +“Well, sir,” said I, stiffly; “I am at your orders.” + </p> +<p> +It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to own +that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper to relate +what took place. I can but give the substance of our conversation. It is +not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this purport:—The Count +had come to inform me that, without any intention or endeavour on his +part, he had gained Mrs O’Dowd’s affections and won her heart! Yes, +much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting opposite to me +at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was apologising for +having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, he was most +circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one side, and that +he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself as became a Gran’ +Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that might mean. +</p> +<p> +My amazement—I might almost call it my stupefaction—at the +unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to him +without an effort at interruption. +</p> +<p> +“I have come to you, therefore, to-day,” said he, “to give up her +letters.” + </p> +<p> +“Her letters!” exclaimed I; “and she has written to you!” + </p> +<p> +“Twenty-three times in all,” said he, calmly, as he drew a large black +pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. +“The earlier ones are less interesting,” said he, turning them over. “It +is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she +commences to call me ‘Caro Animale’—she meant to say Annibale, but, +poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger—‘Animale Mio’—the +same error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, ‘Diletto del mio cuore, +quando non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il +mio Tiranno’—that was <i>you</i>.” + </p> +<p> +I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought +he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. I +saw that Gioberti’s friend had his wits about him, and resumed the +conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in +my wife’s handwriting. +</p> +<p> +“Very true,” said he; “these, as you will perceive by the official stamp, +are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura—the originals are +safe.” + </p> +<p> +“And with what object,” asked I, gasping—“safe for what?” + </p> +<p> +“For you, lllustrissimo,” said he, bowing, “when you pay me two thousand +francs for them.” + </p> +<p> +“I’ll knock your brains out first,” said I, with another clutch at the +poker, but the muzzle of the pistol was now directly in front of me. +</p> +<p> +“I am moderate in my demands, signor,” said he, quietly; “there are men in +my position would ask you twenty thousand; but I am a galantuomo——” + </p> +<p> +“And the friend of Gioberti,” added I, with a sneer. +</p> +<p> +“Precisely so,” said he, bowing with much grace. +</p> +<p> +I will not weary you, dear reader, with my struggles—conflicts that +almost cost me a seizure on the brain—but hasten to the result. I +beat down the noble Count’s demand to one-half and for a thousand francs I +possessed myself of the fatal originals, written unquestionably and +indisputably by my wife’s hand; and then, giving the Count a final piece +of advice, never to let me see more of him, I hurried off to Mrs O’Dowd. +</p> +<p> +She was out paying some bills, and only arrived a few minutes before +dinner-hour. +</p> +<p> +“I want you, madam, for a moment here,” said I, with something of Othello, +in the last act, in my voice and demeanour. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O’Dowd,” said she, +snappishly. +</p> +<p> +“No, madam; you may probably find that you’ll need them both at the end of +our interview.” + </p> +<p> +“What do you mean, sir?” asked she, haughtily. +</p> +<p> +“This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam,” said I, with the +tone of the avenging angel. “Do you know these? are these in your hand? +Deny it if you can.” + </p> +<p> +“Why should I deny it? Of course they’re mine.” + </p> +<p> +“And you wrote this, and this, and this?” cried I, almost in a scream, as +I shook forth one after another of the letters. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you know I did?” said she, as hotly; “and nothing beyond a venial +mistake in one of them!” + </p> +<p> +“A what, woman? a what?” + </p> +<p> +“A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up half +the night at my exercises?” + </p> +<p> +“Exercises!” + </p> +<p> +“Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies of +them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day—here +are the rough ones;” and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of papers +all scrawled over and blotted. “And now, sir, once more, what do you +mean?” + </p> +<p> +I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. “Where does +that Count Castrocaro live?” I asked. +</p> +<p> +“Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left +Turin—started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He’s a +Gran’ Galantuomo, sir,” added he, as I stood stupefied. +</p> +<p> +“I am aware of that,” said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my +packing. +</p> +<p> +“Did you settle with the Count?” asked my wife at the door. +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” said I, with my head buried in my trunk. +</p> +<p> +“And he was perfectly satisfied?” + </p> +<p> +“Of course he was—he has every reason to be so.” + </p> +<p> +“I am glad of it,” said she, moving away—“he had a deal of trouble +with those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him.” I could have +told what they cost <i>me</i>; but I never did, till the present moment. +</p> +<p> +I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what +abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the +evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill +before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. All +these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their +bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with +composure of this friend of Gioberti. +</p> +<p> +Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he +gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, “and he’d give ten more to any one +who’d tell him what to do with it.” I strongly suspect this is pretty much +the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is—at +least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, where +is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack? +</p> +<p> +The very last thing Italians have in their minds is a war with England. If +we have not done them any great or efficient service, we have always +spoken civilly of them, and bade them a God-speed. But, besides a certain +goodwill that they feel for us, they entertain—as a nation with a +very extended and ill-protected coast-line ought—a considerable +dread of a maritime power that could close every port they possess, and +lay some very important towns in ashes. +</p> +<p> +Now, it is exactly by the possession of a fleet that, in any future war +between England and France, these people may be obliged to ally themselves +to France. The French will want them in the Mediterranean, and they cannot +refuse when called on. +</p> +<p> +Count Cavour always kept telling our Foreign Office, “A strong Italy is +the best thing in the world for you. A strong Italy is the surest of all +barriers against France.” There may be some truth in the assertion if +Italy could spring at once—Minerva fashion—all armed and ready +for combat, and stand out as a first-rate power in Europe; but to do this +requires years of preparation, long years too; and it is precisely in +these years of interval that France can become all-dominant in Italy—the +master, and the not very merciful master, of her destinies in everything. +France has the guardianship of Italy—with this addition, that she +can make the minority last as long as she pleases. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps my Garibaldian companion has impregnated me with an unreasonable +amount of anti-French susceptibility, for certainly he abuses our dear +allies with a zeal and a gusto that does one’s heart good to listen to; +and I do feel like that honest Bull, commemorated by Mathews, that “I hate +prejudice—I hate the French.” So it is: these revolutionists, these +levellers, these men of the people, are never weary of reviling the French +Emperor for being a <i>parvenu</i>. Human inconsistency cannot go much +farther than this. Not but I perfectly agree with my Garibaldian, that we +have all agreed to take the most absurdly exaggerated estimate of the +Emperor’s ability. Except in some attempts, and not always successful +attempts, to carry out the policy and plans of the first Empire, there is +really nothing that deserves the name of statesmanship in his career. +Wherever he has ventured on a policy, and accompanied it by a prediction, +it has been a failure. Witness the proud declaration of Italy from the +Alps to the Adriatic, with its corroboration in the Treaty of Villafranca! +The Emperor, in his policy, resembles one of those whist-players who never +plan a game, but play trick by trick, and rather hope to win by +discovering a revoke than from any honest success of their own hand. It is +all the sharp practice of statecraft that he employs: nor has he many +resources in cunning. The same dodge that served him in the Crimea he +revived at Villafranca. It is always the same ace he has in his sleeve! +</p> +<p> +The most ardent Imperialist will not pretend to say that he knows his road +out of rome or Mexico, or even Madagascar. For small intrigue, short +speeches to deputations, and mock stag-hunts, he has not his superior +anywhere. And now, here we are in Genoa, at the Hotel Feder, where poor +O’Connell died, and there’s no fleet, not a frigate, in the port. +</p> +<p> +“Where are they?” + </p> +<p> +“At Spezia.” + </p> +<p> +“Where is Spezia?” + </p> +<p> +The landlord, to whom this question is propounded, takes out of a +pigeon-hole of his desk a large map and unfolds it, saying, proudly, +“There, sir, that is Spezia—a harbour that could hold Portsmouth, +and Plymouth, and Brest, and Cherbourg “—I’m not sure he didn’t say +Calais—“and yet have room for our Italian fleet, which, in two +years’ time, will be one of the first in Europe.” + </p> +<p> +“The ships are building, I suppose?” said I. +</p> +<p> +“They are.” + </p> +<p> +“And where?” + </p> +<p> +“In America, at Toulon, and in England.” + </p> +<p> +“None in Italy?” + </p> +<p> +“Pardon me; there is a corvette on the stocks at Leghorn, and they are +repairing a boiler at Genoa. Ah! Signor John Bull, take care; we have iron +and coal mines, we have oak and hemp, and tallow and tar. There was a +winged lion once that swept the seas before people sang ‘Rule Britannia.’ +History is going to repeat itself.” + </p> +<p> +“Let me be called at eight to-morrow morning, and my coffee be ready by +nine.” + </p> +<p> +“And we shall want a vetturino for Spezia,” added my Garibaldian; “let him +be here by eleven.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +GARIBALDI’S WORSHIPPERS. +</h2> +<p> +The road from Genoa to Spezia is one of the most beautiful in Europe. As +the Apennines descend to the sea they form innumerable little bays and +creeks, alongside of which the road winds—now coasting the very +shore, now soaring aloft on high-perched cliffs, and looking down into +deep dells, or to the waving tops of tall pine-trees. Seaward, it is a +succession of yellow-stranded bays, land-locked and narrow; and on the +land side are innumerable valleys, some waving with horse-chestnut and +olive, and others stern and rock-bound, but varying in colour from the +bluish-grey of marble to every shade of porphyry. +</p> +<p> +For several miles after we left Genoa, the road presented a succession of +handsome villas, which, neglected and uncared for, and in most part +untenanted, were yet so characteristically Italian in all their vast-ness—their +massive style and spacious plan—as to be great ornaments of the +scenery. Their gardens, too—such glorious wildernesses of rich +profusion—where the fig and the oleander, the vine and the orange, +tangle and intertwine—and cactuses, that would form the wonder of +our conservatories, are trained into hedgerows to protect cabbages. My +companion pointed out to me one of these villas on a little jutting +promontory of rock, with a narrow bay on one side, almost hidden by the +overhanging chestnut-trees. “That,” said he, “is the Villa Spinola. It was +from there, after a supper with his friend Vecchi, that Garibaldi sailed +on his expedition to Marsala. A sort of decent secrecy was maintained as +to the departure of the expedition; but the cheers of those on shore, as +the boats pulled off, told that the brave buccaneers carried with them the +heartfelt good wishes of their countrymen.” Wandering on in his talk from +the campaign of Sicily and Calabria, my companion spoke of the last wild +freak of Garibaldi and the day of Aspromonte, and finally of the hero’s +imprisonment at Varignano, in the Gulf of Spezia. +</p> +<p> +It appeared from his account that the poor wounded sufferer would have +fared very ill, had it not been for the provident kindness and care of his +friends in England, who supplied him with everything he could want and a +great deal he could by no possibility make use of. Wine of every kind, for +instance, was largely sent to one who was a confirmed water-drinker, and +who, except when obliged by the impure state of the water, never ventured +to taste wine. If now and then the zealous anxiety to be of service had +its ludicrous side—and packages arrived of which all the ingenuity +of the General’s followers failed to detect what the meaning might be—there +was something very noble and very touching in this spontaneous sympathy of +a whole people, and so Garibaldi felt it. +</p> +<p> +The personal homage of the admirers—the worshippers they might be +called—was, however, an infliction that often pushed the patience of +Garibaldi’s followers to its limit, and would have overcome the gentle +forbearance of any other living creature than Garibaldi himself. They came +in shoals. Steamboats and diligences were crammed with them, and the +boatmen of Spezia plied as thriving a trade that summer as though +Garibaldi were a saint, at whose shrine the devout of all Europe came to +worship. In vain obstacles were multiplied and difficulties to entrance +invented. In vain it was declared that only a certain number of visitors +were daily admitted, and that the number was already complete. In vain the +doctors announced that the General’s condition was prejudiced, and his +feverish state increased, by these continual invasions. Each new arrival +was sure to imagine that there was something special or peculiar in his +case to make him an exception to any rule of exclusion. +</p> +<p> +“I knew Garibaldi in Monte Video. You have only to tell him it’s Tomkins; +he’ll be overjoyed to see me.” “I travelled with him from Manchester to +Bridgeport; he’ll remember me when he sees me; I lent him a wrapper in the +train.” “I knew his son Menotti when at school.” “I was in New York when +Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking for his candles;” such +and suchlike were the claims which would not be denied. At last the +infliction became insupportable. Some nights of unusual pain and suffering +required that every precaution against excitement should be taken, and +measures were accordingly concerted how visitors should be totally +excluded. There was this difficulty in the matter, that it might fall at +this precise moment some person of real consequence might have, or some +one whose presence Garibaldi would really have been well pleased to enjoy. +All these considerations were, however, postponed to the patient’s safety, +and an order was sent to the several hotels where strangers usually +stopped to announce that Garibaldi could not be seen. +</p> +<p> +“There is a story,” said my companion, “which I have heard more than once +of this period, but for whose authenticity I will certainly not vouch. <i>Se +non vero e’ ben trovato</i>, as regards the circumstance. It was said that +a party of English ladies had arrived at the chief hotel, having come as a +deputation from some heaven-knows-what association in England, to see the +General, and make their own report on his health, his appearance, and what +they deemed his prospect of perfect recovery. They had come a very long +journey, endured a considerable share of fatigues and certain police +attentions, which are not exactly what are called amenities. They had +come, besides, on an errand which might warrant a degree of insistance +even were they—which they were not—of an order that patiently +puts up with denial. When their demand for admission was replied to by a +reference to the general order excluding all visitors, they indignantly +refused to be classed in such a category. They were not idle tourists, or +sensation-hunting travellers. They were a deputation! They came from the +Associated Brothers and Sisters of Freedom—from the Branch Committee +of the Ear of Crying Nationalities—they were not to be sent away in +this light and thoughtless manner. +</p> +<p> +“The correspondence was animated. It lasted the whole day, and the +last-sent epistle of the ladies bore the date of half-past eleven at +night. This was a document of startling import; for, after expressing, and +not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of the +writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort of way, +the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to England +with the story of their rejection. +</p> +<p> +“Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the +battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade; and +that, from the hour of these ladies’ arrival in England, all supplies +would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the greater number +of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the suite of Garibaldi, +not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts and choice hosiery, +silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the ordinary wear of people to +whom such luxuries were not known even by description, it was no mean +menace that seemed to declare all this was to have an end. +</p> +<p> +“One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of +Arundel’s port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that +English liqueur called ‘Punch sauce,’ and so on; and they very reasonably +disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel. +</p> +<p> +“It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed +itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari, +one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore +that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair, +mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat +closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the General, +was the plan—a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief some +annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more than was +now intended. +</p> +<p> +“To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in his +habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was introduced. +The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One dropped, +Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot of his bed; +another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained the bedside to +grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion to water it with +her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party took out her +scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble head. They +sobbed over him—they blubbered over him—they compared him with +his photograph, and declared he was libelled—they showered cards +over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, not +unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they declared +that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they’d have willingly made a +pilgrimage to Mecca. +</p> +<p> +“It is said,” continued my informant, “that Ripari never could be induced +to give another representation; and that he declared the luxuries that +came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed by a deputation +of sympathisers. +</p> +<p> +“But to Garibaldi himself, the sympathy and the sympathisers went on to +the last; and kind wishes and winter-clothing still find their way, with +occasionally very tiresome visitors, to the lone rock at Caprera.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. +</h2> +<p> +Our host of the Feder was not wrong. There was not a word of exaggeration +in what he said of Spezia. It could contain all the harbours of France and +England, and have room for all the fleets of Europe besides. About seven +miles in depth, and varying in width from two to three and a half, it is +fissured on every side by beautiful little bays, with deep water +everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, or a bar, throughout the whole +extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf has its protection by the long +coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away to the southward and eastward, so +that the security is perfect, and a vessel once anchored within the +headlands between Lerici and Palmaria is as safe as in dock. +</p> +<p> +The first idea of making a great arsenal and naval depot of Spezia came +from the Great Emperor. It is said that he was not more than one day +there, but in that time he planned the fort which bears his name, and +showed how the port could be rendered all but impregnable. Cavour took up +the notion, and pursued it with all his wonted energy and activity during +the last three or four years of his life. He carried through the Chamber +his project, and obtained a vote for upwards of two millions sterling; but +his death, which occurred soon after, was a serious blow to the +undertaking; and, like most of the political legacies of the great +statesman, the arsenal of Spezia fell into the hands of weak executors. +</p> +<p> +The first great blunder committed was to accord the chief contract to a +bubble company, who sold it, to be again resold; so that it is said +something like fifteen changes of proprietary occurred before the first +spadeful of earth was turned. +</p> +<p> +The inordinate jealousy Italians have of foreigners, and their fear lest +they should “utilise” Italy, and carry away all her wealth with them, has +been the source of innumerable mistakes. From this, and their own +ignorance of marine engineering, Spezia has already, without the slightest +evidence of a commencement, swallowed up above eight millions of francs—the +only palpable results being the disfigurement of a very beautiful road, +and the bankruptcy of some half-dozen contractors. +</p> +<p> +There is nothing of which one hears more, than of the readiness and +facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts +himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the +management of new machinery. +</p> +<p> +Every newly-come English engineer was struck with this, and expressed +freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. After a +while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself disappointed—that +after the first extraordinary show of intelligence no progress was made—that +they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but did nothing after. They +speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or say, no matter in what +fashion, and impatiently desired to try something new. The John Bull +contentedness to attain perfection in some one branch, and never ask to go +beyond it, was a sentiment they could not understand. Every one, in fact, +would have liked to do everything, and, as a consequence, do it +exceedingly ill. +</p> +<p> +Assuredly the Count Cavour was the political Marquis de Carabas of Italy. +Everything you see was his! No other head seemed to contrive, no other eye +to see, nor ear to hear. These railroads—as much for military +movements as passenger traffic—this colossal harbour, even to the +two iron-clads that lie there at anchor—were all of his designing. +They are ugly-looking craft, and have a look of pontoons rather than ships +of war; but they are strong, and have a low draught of water, and were +intended especially for the attack of Venice, just when the Emperor pulled +up short at Villafranca. It is not generally known, I believe, but I can +vouch for the fact, that so terrified were the Austrians on receiving at +Venice the disastrous news of Solferino, that three of the largest +steamers of the Austrian Lloyd’s Company were brought up, and sunk within +twelve hours after the battle. So hurriedly was the whole done that no +time was given to remove the steward’s stores, and the vessels went down +as they stood! +</p> +<p> +This reminds me of a little incident, for whose exact truth I can +guarantee. On the day of the battle of Solferino, the Austrian Envoy at +Rome dined with the Cardinal Antonelli. It was a very joyous little +dinner, each in the highest spirits—satisfied with the present, and +full of hope for the future. The telegram which arrived at mid-day told +that the troops were in motion, and that the artillery fire had already +opened. The position was a noble one—the army full of spirit, and +all confident that before the sun should set the tide of victory would +have turned, and the white legions of the Danube be in hot pursuit of +their flying enemy. Indeed, the Envoy came to dinner fortified with a mass +of letters from men high in command, all of which assumed as indisputable +that the French must be beaten. Of the Italians they never spoke at all. +</p> +<p> +As the two friends sat over the dessert, they discussed what at that +precise moment might be going on over the battle-field. Was the conflict +still continuing? Had the French reserves been brought up? Had they, too, +been thrown back, beaten and disordered? and where was the fourth corps +under the Prince Napoleon? They were forty thousand strong—could +they have arrived in time from the Po? All these casualties, and many +others, did they talk over, but never once launching a doubt as to the +issue, or ever dreaming that the day was not to reverse all the late past, +and bring back the Austrians in triumph to Milan. +</p> +<p> +As they sat, the Prefect of Police was announced and introduced. He came +with the list of the persons who were to be arrested and sent to prison—they +were one hundred and eighteen, some of them among the first families of +Rome—so soon as certain tidings of the victory arrived, and the game +of reaction might be safe to begin. +</p> +<p> +“No news yet, Signor Prefetto! come back at ten,” said the Cardinal +</p> +<p> +At ten he presented himself once more. The Cardinal and his friend were +taking coffee, but less joyous, it seemed, than before. At least they +looked anxious for news, and started at every noise in the street that +might announce new-come tidings. “We have heard nothing since you were +here,” said the Cardinal. “His Excellency thinks that, at a moment of +immense exigency, they may not have immediately bethought them of sending +off a despatch.” + </p> +<p> +“There can be no doubt what the news will be when it comes,” said the +Envoy, “and I’d say, make the arrests at once.” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t know; I’m not sure. I think I’d rather counsel a little more +patience,” said the Cardinal. “What if you were to come back at, let us +say, midnight.” The Prefect bowed, and withdrew. +</p> +<p> +At midnight it was the same scene, only that the actors were more +agitated; the Envoy, at least, worked up to a degree of impatience that +bordered on fever; for while he persisted in declaring that the result was +certain, he continued to censure, in very-severe terms, the culpable +carelessness of those charged with the transmission of news. “Ah!” cried +he, “there it comes at last!” and a loud summons at the bell resounded +through the house. +</p> +<p> +“A telegram, Eminence,” said the servant, entering with the despatch. The +Envoy tore it open: there were but two words,—“<i>Sanglante déroute</i>.” + </p> +<p> +The Cardinal took the paper from the hands of the overwhelmed and +panic-struck minister, and read it. He stood for a few seconds gazing on +the words, not a line or lineament in his face betraying the slightest +emotion; then, turning to the Envoy, he said, “Bon soir; allons dormir;” + and moved away with his usual quick little step, and retired. +</p> +<p> +And all this time I have been forgetting the Italian fleet, which lies +yonder beneath me. The Garibaldi, that they took from the Neapolitans; the +Duca di Genova, the Maria Adelaide, and the Regina are there, all +screw-propellers of fifty guns each; the Etna, a steam-corvette; and some +six or seven old sailing craft, used as school ships; and, lastly, the two +cuirassée gunboats, Formidabile and Terribile, and which, with a jealousy +imitated from the French, no one is admitted on board of. They are +provided with “rams” under the water-line, and have a strange apparatus by +which about one-third of the deck towards the bow can be raised, like the +lid of a snuff-box, leaving the forepart of the ship almost on a level +with the water. Under what circumstances, and how, this provision is to be +made available, I have not the very vaguest conception. +</p> +<p> +These vessels were never intended as sea-going ships; and the batteries +are an exaggeration of the mistake in the Gloire, for even with the +slightest sea the ports must be closed. Besides this defect, they roll +abominably, and with a full head of steam on they cannot accomplish seven +knots. +</p> +<p> +Turning from the ships to the harbour, I could not help thinking of Sydney +Smith’s remark on the Reform Club, “I prefer your room to your company;” + for, after all, what a sorry stud it is for such a magnificent stable! It +is but a beginning, you will say. True enough, and so is everything just +now here; but, except the Genoese, the Italians have few real sailors. +There are no deep-sea fisheries, and the small craft which creep along +close to shore are not the nurseries of seamen. The world, however, has +resolved, by a large vote, to be hopeful about Italy; and, of course, she +will have a fleet, as she will have all the trade of the Levant, immensely +productive mines, and vast regions of cotton. “What for no?” as Meg Dodds +says; but I can’t help thinking there are no people in Europe so much +alike as the Italians and the Irish; and I ask myself, How is it that +every one is so sanguine about the one, and so hopeless about the other? +Why do we hear of the capacity and the intelligence of the former, and +only of the latter what pertains to their ignorance and their sloth? Oh! +unjust generation of men! have not my poor countrymen all the qualities +you extol in these same Peninsulars, plus a few others not to be +disparaged? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. +</h2> +<p> +At the Croce di Malta, where we stopped—the Odessa, we heard, was +atrociously bad—we met a somewhat depressed countryman, whose +familiarity with place and people was indicated by several little traits. +He rebuked the waiter for the salad oil, and was speedily supplied with +better; he remonstrated about the wine, and a superior “cru” was served +the day following. The book of the arrivals, too, was brought to him each +day as he sat down to table, and he grunted out, I remember, in no very +complimentary fashion as he read our names, “Nobodies.” + </p> +<p> +My Garibaldian friend had gone over to Massa, so that I found myself alone +with this gentleman on the night of my arrival; for, when the company of +the <i>table-d’hôte</i> withdrew, he and I were discovered, as the +stage-people say, seated opposite to each other at the fire. +</p> +<p> +It blew hard without; the sea beat loudly on the shingly shore, and even +sent some drifts of spray against the windows; while within doors a +cheerful wood-fire blazed on the ample hearth, and the low-ceilinged room +did not look a whit the worse that it suggested snugness instead of +splendour. I had got my cup of coffee and my cognac on a little table +beside me; and while I filled the bowl of my pipe, I bethought me how +cheap and come-at-able are often the materials of our comfort, if one had +but the prudence which ignores all display. My companion, apparently +otherwise occupied in thought, sat gazing moodily at the fire, and to all +seeming unaware of my presence. +</p> +<p> +“Will my smoking annoy you, sir?” asked I, as I was ready to begin. +</p> +<p> +“No,” said he, without looking up. “I’d like to know where one could go to +live nowadays if it did.” + </p> +<p> +“Very true,” said I; “the practice is almost universal” + </p> +<p> +“So is child-murder, so is profane swearing, so is wearing a beard, and +poisoning by strychnine.” + </p> +<p> +I was somewhat struck by his enumeration of modern atrocities, and I said, +in a tone intended to invite converse, “You are no admirer, then, of what +some are fain to call progress?” + </p> +<p> +He started, and, turning a fierce sharp glance on me, said, “I’d rather +you’d touch me with that hot poker there, sir, than hurl that hateful word +at my ears. If there’s a thing I hate the most, it’s what cant—a +vile modern slang—calls ‘Progress.’ You’re just in the spot at this +moment to mark one of its high successes. Do you know Spezia?” “Not in the +least; never was here before.” “Well, sir, I have known it, I’ll not stop +to count how many years; but I knew it when that spot yonder, where you +see that vile tall chimney, with its tail of murky smoke, was a beautiful +little villa, all overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where you perceive +that red glare—the flame of a smelting furnace—there was an +orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse stood, +on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, turn to +this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four main lines, +cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen timber, with +swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the other, led—ay, +and not four years ago—along the margin of the sea, with a forest of +chestnuts on the other side, two lines of acacias forming a shade along +it, so that in the mid-day of an Italian July you might walk it in +delicious shadow. In the Gulf itself the whole scene was mirrored, and not +a headland, nor rock, nor cliff, that was not pictured below. It was, in a +word, a little paradise; nor were the people all unworthy of their lovely +birthplace. They were a quiet, civil, obliging, simple-minded set—if +not inviting strangers to settle amongst them, never rude or repelling to +them; equitable in dealings, and strange to all disturbance or outrage. +What they are now is no more easy to say than what a rivulet is when a +torrent has carried away its banks and swept its bed. Two thousand +navvies, the outsweepings of jails and the galleys, have come down to the +works; a horde of contractors, sub-contractors, with the several staffs of +clerks, inspectors, and suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its +beauty, uprooting its repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and +converting the very gem of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp—a +vast amphitheatre, where liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul +miasma, centrifugal pumps, and tertian fevers, fight all day for the +mastery. And for what?—for what? To fill the pockets of knavish +ministers and thieving officials—to make an arsenal that will never +be finished, for a fleet that will never be built.” My companion, it is +needless to say, was no optimist; but the strange point was, that while he +was unsparing of his censure on Cavour and the “Piedmontese party,” he was +no apologist for the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he +launched out freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and +corruption, and freely corroborated our own Premier’s assertions, by +calling the Pope’s the “worst government in Europe.” In fact, he showed +very clearly that the smaller states of Italy were well or ill +administered in the direct ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal +interference,—Modena being the worst, and Tuscany the best of them. +</p> +<p> +Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went—for he +not merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the +characters and tempers of the leading Italians—yet, with all this, I +could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy, and +yet did not like the new, what he did wish for? +</p> +<p> +“I have my theory on that subject, sir,” said he; “nor am I the less +enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt it.” + </p> +<p> +“It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose,” said I; +“Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers.” + </p> +<p> +“Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you did.” + </p> +<p> +I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial +concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy. +</p> +<p> +“I’d unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a small +circle around Rome, are not Latins—they are Greeks. I’d bring them +back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with craft and +subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they’d not cheat the +‘Hellenes’ as they do the French and the English; and as the only true way +to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I’d unite them to a race +that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What is it, I ask you, +makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, the prudent, +hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States? Simply the +fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no longer serves him. +The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and Paddy must use his +hands instead of his head. The same would happen with the Italian. Give +him a Greek master, and you’ll see what he’ll become.” + </p> +<p> +“But the Greeks, after all,” said I, “do not present such a splendid +example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands.” + </p> +<p> +“And don’t you see why?” broke he in. “Have you ever looked into a +gambling-house when the company had no ‘pigeon,’ and were obliged to play +against each other. They have lost all decency—all the semblance of +good manners and decorum. Whatever little politeness they had put on to +impose upon the outsider was gone, and there they were in all the naked +atrocity of their bad natures. It is thus you see the Greeks. You have +dropped in upon them unfairly; you have invaded a privacy they had hoped +might be respected. Give them a nation to cheat, however; let the pigeon +be introduced, and you’ll not see a better bred and a more courtly people +in Europe.” + </p> +<p> +That they had great social qualities he proceeded to show from a number of +examples. They were, in fact, in the world of long ago what the French are +to our own day, and there was no reason to suppose that the race had lost +its old characteristics. According to my companion’s theory, Force had +only its brief interval of domination anywhere; the superior intelligence +was sure to gain the upper hand at last; and we, in our opposition to this +law, were supply retarding an inevitable tendency of nature—protracting +the fulfilment of what we could not prevent. +</p> +<p> +I got him back from these speculations to speak of himself, and he told me +some experiences which will, perhaps, account for the displeasure with +which he regards the changed fortunes of Spezia. I shall give his +narrative as nearly as I can in his own words, and in a chapter to itself. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE STRANGE MAN’S SORROW. +</h2> +<p> +“When I first knew Spezia, it was a very charming spot to pass the summer +in. The English had not found it out A bottle of Harvey sauce or a copy of +‘Galignani’ had never been seen here; and the morning meal, which now +figures in my bill as ‘Dejeuner complet—two francs.’ was then called +‘Coffee,’ and priced twopence. I used to pass my day in a small sail-boat, +and in my evenings I played halfpenny whist with the judge and the +commander of the forces and a retired envoy, who, out of a polite +attention to me as a stranger, agreed to play such high stakes during my +sojourn at the Baths. +</p> +<p> +“They were excellent people, of unblemished character, and a politeness I +have rarely seen equalled. Nobody could sneeze without the whole company +rising to wish him a long and prosperous life, or a male heir to his name; +and as for turning the trump card without a smile and a bow all round to +the party, it was a thing unheard of. +</p> +<p> +“I thought if I could only secure a spot to live in in such an Arcadia, it +would be charming, but this was a great difficulty. No one had any +accommodation more than he wanted for himself. The very isolation that +gave the place its charm excluded all speculation, and not a house was to +be had. In my voyagings, however, around the Gulf, I landed one day at a +little inlet, surrounded with high lands, and too small to be called a +bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a small villa. It +looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, and where you take +off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs are made and the +rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one side and an orangery at +the other, and it all looked the neatest and prettiest little thing one +ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I drew my boat on shore and +strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not even a dog. There was a deep +well with a draw-bucket, and I filled my gourd with ice-cold water; and +then plucking a ripe orange that had just given me a bob in the eye, I sat +down to eat it. While I was engaged, I heard a wicket open and shut, and +saw an old man, very shabbily dressed, and with a mushroom straw hat, +coming towards me. Before I could make excuses for my intrusion, he had +welcomed me to Pertusola—‘The Nook,’ in English—and invited me +to step in and have a glass of wine. +</p> +<p> +“I took him for the steward or fattore, and acceded, not sorry to ask some +questions about the villa and its owner. He showed me over the house, +explaining with much pride how a certain kitchen-range came from England, +though nobody ever knew the use of it, but it was all very comfortable. +The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more space, and +contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would have approved +of. Yet there were capabilities—great capabilities; and so, before I +left, I took it from the old gentleman in the rusty costume, who turned +out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the ‘commendatore’ of I don’t know +what order, and various other dignities beside, all recited and set forth +in the lease. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved +the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn’t an island, but it was all +but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock denied +access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable pine wood +to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that even now, when +I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire of an evening, I +just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through its olive groves, or +watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara mountains. +</p> +<p> +“I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got +flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little +plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses, +so that the Queen—she was at Spezia for the bathing—came once +to see my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was +as gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in +their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with +enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times as +inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and its +quality—was it a spring—did it ever fail—and when, and +how? Then as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? +What the anchorage was like—mud—and why mud? And when I said +there was always a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, +why? and I did explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, +which acted as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back +to verify my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining +everything, and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to +experience the currents of air. ‘You are right,’ said he, as he got into +his boat, ‘quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a +smelting-furnace.’ +</p> +<p> +“I thought it odd praise at the time, but before six months I received +notice to quit. +</p> +<p> +“Pertusola had been sold to a lead company, one of the directors having +strongly recommended the site as an admirable harbour, with good water, +and a perpetual draught of wind, equal to a blast-furnace.” + </p> +<p> +Looking at the dress-coat in which you once captivated dinner-parties, on +a costeimonger—seeing the strong-boned hunter that has carried you +over post and rail, in a cab,—are sore trials; but nothing, +according to my companion’s description, to the desecration of your house +and home by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the “Inferno,” + too, pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its +flash, and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the +passionate warmth with which he described it. +</p> +<p> +“They had begun that chimney, sir,” cried he, “before I got out of the +house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they +were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see +the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the +place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can see +on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no depth to +anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in stillness. +No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, I must be +brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn’t been eight months +there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and four persons in plain +clothes landed from her, and pottered about the shore—I thought +looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my house, and asked +permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace. I acceded, and in +they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do you think he was? +The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran cold when I saw him. +</p> +<p> +“‘You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,’ said he to me, coolly. +</p> +<p> +“‘Yes, and I might have been living there still,’ replied I, ‘if it had +not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak enough +to be polite.’ +</p> +<p> +“He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, +passed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, and +I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; for not +only did he describe the exact measurements between various points, but +the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the currents, and the +prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by running out a pier +here, and a breakwater there—by filling up this, and deepening that—safe +anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while the headlands could be +easily fortified, and ‘at a moderate cost,’ I quote himself, ‘of say +twenty two or three millions of francs, while a fort erected on the island +there would command the whole entrance.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?’ cried I; for, as +they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly. +</p> +<p> +“He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, ‘Who +knows? the French perhaps—perhaps your own people one of these +days.’ +</p> +<p> +“I’d like to have said, but I didn’t, ‘We could walk in and walk out here, +with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with a +mackintosh.’ +</p> +<p> +“They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf and +dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man—he looked +exactly like an owl—said, with a little grin, ‘We’re going to +disturb you again.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘How so?’ cried I; ‘you can’t smelt lead here.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘No, but we’re going to make an arsenal. Where you stand now will be a +receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You’ll have to +clear out before the New Year.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Who is he? who is that with the spectacles?’ asked I of one of the +servants, who waited outside with cloaks and umbrellas. +</p> +<p> +“‘That’s the Conte di Cavour,’ said the fellow, haughtily; and thus was +the whole murder out at once. They turned me out, sir, in two months, and +I never ventured to take a lease of a place till he died. After that +event, I purchased a little spot on the island of Tino yonder, and built +myself a cottage. They could neither smelt metal nor build a ship there, +and I hugged myself at the thought of safety. But, would you believe it? +last week—only last week—his successor, in rummaging over +Cavour’s papers in the Foreign Office, comes upon a packet labelled +‘Spezia,’ and discovers a memorandum in these words, ‘The English Admiral, +at dinner to-day, laughed at the idea of defending the mouth of the Gulf +from the island. He said the entrance should be two-thirds closed by a +breakwater, and a strong fort <i>à fleur d’eau</i> built on Tino. I have +thought of it all night; he is perfectly right, and I’ll do it;’ and here, +sir,” said my companion, drawing a paper from his pocket, “is a +‘sommation’ from the minister to surrender my holding on Tino, receiving a +due compensation for the same, and once more betake myself, heaven knows +where; for, though the great Count Cavour is dead and gone, his grand +intentions are turning up every day, out of drawers and pigeonholes, and I +shrewdly suspect that neither Pio Nono nor myself will live to see the +last of them.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. +</h2> +<p> +My Garibaldian friend has returned, but only to bid me good-bye and be off +again. The Government, it would seem, are rather uneasy as to the +movements of the “Beds,” and quietly intimated to my friend that they were +sure he had something particular to do—some urgent private affairs—at +Geneva; and, like the well-bred dog in the story, he does not wait for any +further suggestions, but goes at once. +</p> +<p> +He revenged himself, however, all the time at breakfast, by talking very +truculently before the waiters of what would happen when Garibaldi took +the field again, and how miserably small Messrs Batazzi & Co. would +look under the circumstances. Indeed, as he warmed with his subject, he +went the length of declaring that, without a very ample apology for the +events of Aspromonte, he did not believe Garibaldi would consent to take +Venice, or drive the French out of Rome. +</p> +<p> +With a spirit of tantalising he prolonged this same breakfast for upwards +of two hours, during which the officer of the gendarmerie came and went, +and came again, very eager to see him depart, but evidently with +instructions neither to molest nor interfere with him. +</p> +<p> +“Just look at that beggar,” cried the Garibaldian; “if he has come in here +once during the last hour, he has come a dozen times, and all on my +account! And I mean to smoke three ‘cavours’ over my anisetto before I +leave. Waiter, tell the vetturino he’ll have plenty of time to throw a +feed to his cattle before I start. You know,” added he, “if I was disposed +to be troublesome, I’d not budge: I’d write up to Turin to the Legation +and claim British protection; and I’d have these fellows on the hip, for +they stupidly gave me a reason for my expulsion. They said I was +conspiring. Now I could say, Prove it; and if we only went to law, it +would take ten or twelve years to decide it.” + </p> +<p> +My companion now went on to show that, by a small expenditure of money and +a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity, a lawsuit need never end in Italy. +“First of all, you could ask the opposite party, Who was his advocate? and +on his naming him, you could immediately set to work to show that this man +was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with the commonest pretension +to honesty would dream of employing him. The history of his father could +be adduced, and any private little anecdotes of his mother would find a +favourable opportunity for mention. Though a mere skirmish, if judiciously +managed, this will occupy a week or two, and at the same time serve to +indicate that you mean to show fight; for by this time the ‘Legale’s’ +blood will be up, and he is certain to make reprisals on <i>your</i> man, +so that for a month or so you and the other principal are in the position +of men who, having come out to fight a duel, are first gratified with the +spectacle of a row between the seconds. However, at last it is arranged +that the lawyers are worthy of each other; and the next step is to demand +the names of all the witnesses. This opens a campaign of unlimited +duration, for, as nobody is rash enough to trust himself or his cause to +real and <i>bonâ-fide</i> testimony, witnesses are usually selected +amongst the most astute and ready-witted persons of your acquaintance.” + “Oh,” cried I, “this is a little too strong, isn’t it?” “Let me give you +an instance,” said he, good-humouredly, and not in the least disposed to +be displeased with my expression of distrust. “Some time back an American +gentleman took up his abode for some weeks on the Chiaja at Naples, and in +the same house there lived an Italian, with whom, from frequently meeting +on the stairs and corridors, a sort of hat-touching acquaintance had grown +up. At length one day, as the American was passing hastily out, the +Italian accosted him with a courteous bow and smile, and said, ‘When will +it be your perfect convenience, signor, to repay me that little loan of +two hundred ducats it was my happy privilege to have lent you last month?’ +</p> +<p> +“The American, astounded as he was, had yet patience to inquire whether he +had not mistaken him for another. +</p> +<p> +“The other smiled somewhat reproachfully, as he said, ‘I trust, signor, +you are not disposed to ignore the obligation. You are the gentleman who +lives, I believe, on the second floor left?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Very true; I do live there, and I owe you nothing. I never borrowed a +carlino from you—I never spoke to you before; and if you ever take +the liberty to speak to me again, I’ll knock you down.’ +</p> +<p> +“The Italian smiled again, not so blandly, perhaps, but as significantly, +and saying, ‘We shall see,’ bowed and retired. +</p> +<p> +“The American thought little more of the matter till, going to the +Prefecture to obtain his visé for Borne, he discovered that his passport +had been stopped, and a detainer put upon him for this debt. He hastened +at once to his Minister, who referred him to the law-adviser of the +Legation for counsel. The man of law looked grave; he neither heeded the +angry denunciations of the enraged Yankee, nor his reiterated assurances +that the whole was an infamous fraud. He simply said, ‘The case is +difficult, but I will do my best.’ After the lapse of about a week, a +message came from the Prefect to say that the stranger’s passport was at +his service whenever he desired to have it. +</p> +<p> +“‘I knew it would be so!’ cried the American, as he came suddenly upon his +lawyer in the street. ‘I was certain that you were only exaggerating the +difficulty of a matter that must have been so simple; for, as I never owed +the money, there was no reason why I should pay it.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘It was a case for some address, notwithstanding,’ said the other, +shaking his head. +</p> +<p> +“‘Address! fiddle-stick! It was a plain matter of fact, and needed neither +skill nor cunning. You of course showed that this fellow was a stranger to +me—that we had never interchanged a word till the day he made this +rascally demand?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘I did nothing of the kind, sir. If I had put in so contemptible a plea, +you would have lost your cause. What I did was this: I asked what +testimony he could adduce as to the original loan, and he gave me the name +of one witness, a certain Count well known in this city, who was at +breakfast with him when you called to borrow this money, and who saw the +pieces counted out and placed in your hand.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘You denounced this fellow as a perjurer?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Far from it, sir. I respect the testimony of a man of station and +family, and I would not insult the feelings of the Count by daring to +impugn it; but as the plaintiff had called only one witness to the loan, I +produced two just as respectable, just as distinguished, who saw you repay +the debt! You are now free; and remember, sir, that wherever your +wanderings lead you, never cease to remember that, whatever be our +demerits at Naples, at least we can say with pride, The laws are +administered with equal justice to all men!’” + </p> +<p> +The entrance of the gendarme at this moment cut short the question I was +about to ask, whether I was to accept this story as a fact or as a +parable. +</p> +<p> +“Here he comes again. Only look at the misery in the fellow’s face! and +you see he has his orders evidently enough; and he dare not hurry me. I +think I’ll have a bath before I start.” + </p> +<p> +“It is scarcely fair, after all,” said I. “I suppose he wants to get back +to his one o’clock dinner.” + </p> +<p> +“I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a +scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe—the most generous, +the most trustful, the most unsuspecting—make a brigadier of +Gendarmerie of him for three months, and he’ll come out scarcely a shade +brighter than the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! Do you know what our +friend yonder is at now?” + </p> +<p> +“No. He appears to be trying to take a stain out of one of his yellow +gauntlets.” + </p> +<p> +“No such thing. He is noting down your features—taking a written +portrait of you, as the man who sat at breakfast with me on a certain +morning of a certain month. Take my word for it, some day or other when +you purchase a hat too tall in the crown, or you are seen to wear your +whiskers a trifle too long or bushy, an intimation will reach you at your +hotel, that the Prefect would like to talk with you; the end of which will +be the question, ‘Whether there is not a friend you are most anxious to +meet in Switzerland, or if you have not an uncle impatient to see you at +Trieste?’ And yet,” added he, after a pause, “the Piedmontese are models +of liberality and legality in comparison with the officials in the south. +In Sicily, for instance, the laws are more corruptly administered than in +Turkey. I’ll tell you a case, which was, however, more absurd than +anything else. An English official, well known at Messina, and on the most +intimate terms with the Prefect, came back from a short shooting-excursion +he had made into the interior, half frantic with the insolence of the +servants at a certain inn. The proprietor was absent, and the waiter and +the cook—not caring, perhaps, to be disturbed for a single traveller—had +first refused flatly to admit him; and afterwards, when he had obtained +entrance, treated him to the worst of food, intimating at the same time it +was better than he was used to, and plainly giving him to understand that +on the very slightest provocation they were prepared to give him a sound +thrashing. Boiling over with passion, he got back to Messina, and hastened +to recount his misfortunes to his friend in power. +</p> +<p> +“‘Where did it happen?’ asked the hard-worked Prefect, with folly enough +on his hands without having to deal with the sorrows of Great Britons. +</p> +<p> +“‘At Spalla deMonte.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘When?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘On Wednesday last, the 23d.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘What do you want me to do with them?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘To punish them, of course.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘How—in what way?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘How do I know? Send them to jail.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘For how long?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘A month if you can—a fortnight at least.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘What are the names?’ asked the Prefect, who all this time continued to +write, filling up certain blanks in some printed formula before him. +</p> +<p> +“‘How should I know their names? I can only say that one was the cook, the +other the waiter.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘There!’ said the Prefect, tossing two sheets of printed and written-over +paper towards him—‘there! tell the landlord to fill in the fellows’ +names and surnames, and send that document to the Podesta. They shall have +four weeks, and with hard labour.’ +</p> +<p> +“The Englishman went his way rejoicing. He despatched the missive, and +felt his injuries were avenged. +</p> +<p> +“Two days after, however, a friend dropped in, and in the course of +conversation mentioned that he had just come from Spalla de Monte, where +he had dined so well and met such an intelligent waiter; ‘which, I own,’ +said he, ‘surprised me, for I had heard of their having insulted some +traveller last week very grossly.’ +</p> +<p> +“The Englishman hurried off to the Prefecture. ‘We are outraged, insulted, +laughed at!’ cried he: ‘those fellows you ordered to prison are at large. +They mock your authority and despise it.’ +</p> +<p> +“A mounted messenger was sent off at speed to bring up the landlord to +Messina, and he appeared the next morning, pale with fear and trembling. +He owned that the Prefect’s order had duly reached him, that he had +understood it thoroughly; ‘but, Eccellenza,’ said he, crying, ‘it was the +shooting season; people were dropping in every day. Where was I to find a +cook or a waiter? I must have closed the house if I parted with them; so, +not to throw contempt on your worship’s order, I sent two of the stablemen +to jail in their place, and a deal of good it will do them.’” + </p> +<p> +While I was laughing heartily at this story, my companion turned towards +the gendarme and said, “Have you made a note of his teeth? you see they +are tolerably regular, but one slightly overlaps the other in front.” + </p> +<p> +“Signor Générale,” said the other, reddening, “I’ll make a note of <i>your</i> +tongue, which will do quite as well.” + </p> +<p> +“Bravo!” said the Garibaldian; “better said than I could have given you +credit for. I’ll not keep you any longer from your dinner. Will you bear +me company,” asked he of me, “as far as Chiavari? It’s a fine day, and we +shall have a pleasant drive.” + </p> +<p> +I agreed, and we started. +</p> +<p> +The road was interesting, the post-horses which we took at Borghetto went +well, and the cigars were good, and somehow we said very little to each +other as we went. +</p> +<p> +“This is the real way to travel,” said my companion; “a man to smoke with +and no bother of talking; there’s Chiavari in the hollow.” + </p> +<p> +I nodded, and never spoke. +</p> +<p> +“Are you inclined to come on to Genoa?” + </p> +<p> +“No.” + </p> +<p> +And soon after we parted—whether ever to meet again or not is not so +easy to say, nor of very much consequence to speculate on. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. +</h2> +<p> +There is scarcely any better measure of the amount of comfort a man enjoys +than in the sort of things of which he makes grievances. When the princess +in the Eastern story passed a restless night on account of the rumpled +rose-leaf she lay on, the inference is, that she was not, like another +character of fiction, accustomed to “lie upon straw.” + </p> +<p> +Thus thinking, I was led to speculate on what a happy people must inhabit +the British Islands, seeing the amount of indignation and newspaper wrath +bestowed upon what is called the Organ Nuisance. Now, granting that it is +not always agreeable to have a nasal version of the march in ‘William +Tell,’ ‘Home, sweet Home,’ or ‘La Donna è mobile,’ under one’s window at +meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker hours of headache, surely +the nation which cries aloud over this as a national calamity must enjoy +no common share of Fortune’s favour, and have what the Yankees call a +“fine time” here below. +</p> +<p> +Scarcely a week, however, goes over without one of these persecutors of +British ears being brought up to justice, and some dreary penny-a-liner +appears to prosecute in the person of a gentleman of literary pursuits, +whose labours, like those of Mr Babbage, may be lost to the world, if the +law will not hunt down the organs, and cry “Tally high-ho” to the +“grinders.” + </p> +<p> +It might be grave matter of inquiry whether the passing annoyance of +‘Cherry ripe’ was not a smaller infliction than some of the tiresome +lucubrations it has helped to muddle; and I half fancy I’d as soon listen +to the thunder as drink the small beer it has soured into vinegar. +</p> +<p> +However, as the British Public is resolved on making it a grievance, and +as some distinguished statesman has deemed it worth his while to devise a +bill for its suppression, it is in vain to deny that the evil is one of +magnitude. England has declared she will not be ground down by the +Savoyard, and there is no more to be said of it. +</p> +<p> +A great authority in matters of evasion once protested that he would +engage to drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament that ever +was framed, and I believe him. So certain is language to be too wide or +too narrow—to embrace too much, and consequently fail in +distinctness, or to include too little, and so defeat the attempt to +particularise—that it does not call for more than an ordinary amount +of acuteness to detect the flaws of such legislation. Then, when it comes +to a discussion, and amendments are moved, and some honourable gentleman +suggests that after the word “Whereas” in section 93 the clause should run +“in no case, save in those to be hereafter specified,” &c., there +comes a degree of confusion and obscurity that invariably renders the +original parent of the measure unable to know his offspring, and probably +intently determined to destroy it. That in their eagerness for law-making +the context of these bills is occasionally overlooked, one may learn from +the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as the punishment of +a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that one-half of the sum +should go to the county, one-half to the informer. Parliament, however, +altered the law, but overlooked the context. Imprisonment with hard labour +was decreed as the penalty of the offence, and the clause remained—“one-half +to the county, one-half to the informer.” + </p> +<p> +A Judge of no mean acuteness, the Chief Baron O’Grady, once declared, with +respect to an Act against sheep-stealing, that after two careful readings +he could not decide whether the penalties applied to the owner, of the +sheep, the thief, or the sheep itself, for that each interpretation might +be argumentatively sustained. +</p> +<p> +How will you suppress the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits of +a man’s domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his +area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the ‘Hat-catcher’s Daughter’ +because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by ‘Sich a +gettin’ up stairs’ because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long may +an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his barrels—the +dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how long or how loud +the grand chorus in ‘Nabucco’ should be performed? What endless litigation +will be instituted by any attempt to provide for all these and a score +more of similar casualties, not to speak of the insolent persecution that +may be practised by the performance of tunes of a party character. Fancy +Dr Wiseman composing a pastoral to the air of ‘Croppies, lie down,’ or the +Danish Minister writing a despatch to the inspiriting strains of +‘Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.’ There might come a time, too, when +‘Sie sollen ihm nicht haben’ might grate on a French ambassador’s ears. +Can your Act take cognisance of all these? +</p> +<p> +I see nothing but inextricable confusion in the attempt—confusion, +difficulty, and defeat. There will be an Act, and an Act to amend that +Act, and another Act to alter so much of such an Act, and then a final Act +to repeal them all; so that at last the mover of a bill on the subject +will be the greatest “organ nuisance” that the world has yet heard of. +</p> +<p> +It was “much reflecting” over these things, as my Lord Brougham says, that +I sauntered along the Riviera from Genoa, and came to the little town of +Chiavari, with its long sweep of yellow beach in front and its glorious +grove of orange-trees behind—sure, whether the breeze came from land +or sea, to inhale health and perfume. There is a wide old Piazza in the +centre of the town, with a strange, dreary sort of inn with a low-arched +entrance, under whose shade sit certain dignitaries of the place of an +evening, sipping their coffee and talking over what they imagine to be the +last news of the day. From these “Conscript Fathers” I learned that +Chiavari is the native place of the barrel-organ, that from this little +town go forth to all the dwellers in remotest lands the grinders of the +many-cylindered torment, the persecutor of the prose-writer, the curse of +him who calculates. Just as the valleys of Savoy supply white-mice men, +and Lucca produces image-carriers, so does Chiavari yield its special +product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, in their ambitions, have +attempted the “industry,” but they have egregiously failed; and Chiavari +remains as distinctive in its product as Spitalfields for its shawls, or +Dresden for its china. Whether there may be some peculiarity in the biceps +of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar development which imparts power to his +performance, I know not. I am forced to own that I have failed to discover +to what circumstance or from what quality this excellence is derivable; +but there is the fact, warranted and confirmed by a statistical return, +that but for Chiavari we should have no barrel-organs. +</p> +<p> +“Never imagine,” said a wise prelate, “that you will root Popery out of +England till you destroy Oxford. If you want to get rid of the crows, you +must pull down the rookery.” The words of wisdom flashed suddenly over my +mind as I walked across the silent Piazza at midnight; and I exclaimed—“Yes! +here is the true remedy for the evil. With two hours of a gunboat and four +small Armstrongs the thing is done; batter down Chiavari, and Bab-bage +will bless you with his last breath. Pull down the cookery, and crush the +young rooks in the ruins. Smash the cradle and the babe within it, and you +need not fear the man!” + </p> +<p> +There is a grand justice in the conception that is highly elevating. There +is something eminently fine in making Chiavari, like the Cities of the +Plain, a monument over its own iniquity. Leave not one stone upon another +of it, and there will be peace in our homes and stillness in our streets. +No more shall the black-bearded tormentor terrorise over Baker Street, or +lord it in the Edgeware Road. +</p> +<p> +Commander Snort of the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate not +only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the inhabitant +of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you will no longer +need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here is what the age +especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness with efficiency. It may +be said that we have no more right to destroy Chiavari than Kagosima, but +that question is at least debatable. Are not the headaches of tens of +thousands of more avail than the head of one? What becomes of that noble +principle, the greatest happiness of the greatest number? The Italians, +too, might object: true, but they are neither Americans nor French. They +come into the category of states that may be bullied. The countries which +have an extended seaboard and weak naval armaments are like people with a +large glass frontage and no shutters. There is nothing to prevent us +shying a stone at the Italian window as we pass up to Constantinople, even +though we run away afterwards. I repeat, therefore, the plan is feasible. +As to its cheapness, it would not cost a tithe of what we spent in +destroying the tea-tray fortifications of Satsuma; and as we have a +classic turn for monuments, a pyramid of barrel-organs in Charing Cross +might record to a late posterity the capture of Chiavari. +</p> +<p> +I am not without a certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel it is +a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on these +organ fellows—for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, the +type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our +boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a “Grind” in the world as +Locke King, and his motion for Reform? What do you say to “Rest and be +thankful,” and, above all, what to the “Peace-at-any-price people”? +</p> +<p> +Is ‘Cherry ripe’ more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled +on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? In +all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a Foreign +Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against these. Bring up John +Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the neighbourhood of Birmingham, +by insane accusations against his own country and laudations of America, +and I doubt if you could find a magistrate on the bench to commit him; and +will you tell me that the droning whine of ‘Garibaldi’s March’ is worse +than this? As to the <i>Civis Romanus</i> cant, it is too painful to dwell +on, now that we are derided, ridiculed, and sneered at from Stockholm to +Stamboul. Like Canning’s philanthropist, we have been asking every one for +his story; never was there a soul so full of sympathy for sorrow. We have +heard the tale of Italy, the sufferings of the Confederates, the crying +wrongs of Poland, and the still more cruel, because less provoked, trials +of Denmark. We have thrown up hands and eyes—sighed, groaned, wept; +we have even denounced the ill-doers, and said, What a terrible +retribution awaited them! but, like our great prototype, when asked for +assistance, we have said, +</p> +<p> +“I’ll see you ——— first.” + </p> +<p> +Let us be merciful, therefore, and think twice before we batter down +Chiavari. The organ nuisance is a bore, no doubt; but what are the most +droning ditties that ever addled a weary head, compared to the tiresome +grind of British moral assistance, and the greatness of that <i>Civis +Romanus</i> who hugs his own importance and helps nobody? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D’INDUSTRIE OF OUR DAY. +</h2> +<p> +I was struck the other day by an account of an application made to the +Lord Mayor of London by a country clergyman, to give, as a warning to +others, publicity to a letter he had just received from the East. The +clergyman, it seems, had advertised in the ‘Times’ for pupils, and gave +for address a certain letter of the Greek alphabet. To this address there +came in due time an answer from a gentleman, dated Constantinople, stating +that he was an Anglo-Indian on his way to England, to place his two sons +in an educational establishment; but that having, by an excursion to +Jerusalem, exhausted his immediate resources, he was obliged to defer the +prosecution of his journey till the arrival of some funds he expected from +India—certain to arrive in a month or two. Not wishing, however, to +delay the execution of his project, and being satisfied with the promises +held forth by the advertiser, he purposed placing his sons under his care, +and to do so, desired that forty pounds might be remitted him at once, to +pay his journey to England, for which convenience he, the writer, would +not alone be obliged, but also extend his patronage to the lender, by +recommending him to his friend Sir Hugh Rose, who was himself desirous of +sending his sons to be educated in England. The address of a banker was +given to whom the money should be remitted, and an immediate reply +requested, or “application should be made in some other quarter.” + </p> +<p> +Now, the clergyman did not answer this strange appeal, but he inserted +another advertisement, changing, however, the symbol by which he was to be +addressed, and appearing in this way to be a different person. To this new +address there came another letter, perfectly identical in style and +matter: the only change was, that the writer was now at the Hôtel de la +Reine d’Angleterre at Buda; but all the former pledges of future +protection were renewed, as well as the request for a prompt reply, or +“application will be made in another quarter.” + </p> +<p> +The clergyman very properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, +with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, +against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The +strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the +offender; nor was there in the ‘Times,’ or in the other newspapers where +the circumstances were detailed, one single surmise as to the identity of +this ingenious individual. It is the more singular, since this man is a +specialty—an actual personification of some of the very subtlest +rogueries of the age we live in! +</p> +<p> +If any of my readers can recall a very remarkable exposure the ‘Times’ +newspaper made some ten or twelve years ago, of a most shameful fraud +practised upon governesses, by which they were induced to deposit a sum +equivalent to their travelling expenses from England to some town on the +Continent, as a guarantee to the employer, they will have discovered the +gentleman with the two sons to be educated—the traveller in Syria, +the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, the Anglo-Indian who expects eight hundred +pounds in two months, but has a present and pressing necessity for forty. +</p> +<p> +The governess fraud was ingenious. It was done in this way: An +advertisement appeared in the ‘Times,’ setting forth that an English +gentleman, travelling with his family abroad, wanted a governess—the +conditions liberal, the requirements of a high order. The family in +question, who mixed with the very best society on the Continent, required +that the governess should be a lady of accomplished manners, and one in +every respect qualified for that world of fashion to which she would be +introduced as a member of the advertiser’s family. The advertiser, +however, found that all the English ladies who had hitherto filled this +situation in his family had, through the facilities thus presented them of +entrance into life, made very advantageous marriages; and to protect +himself against the loss entailed by the frequent call on him for +travelling expenses—bringing out new candidates for the hands of +princes and grand-dukes—he proposed that the accepted governess +should deposit with him a sum—say fifty pounds—equivalent to +the charge of the journey; and which, if she married, should be +confiscated to the benefit of her employer. +</p> +<p> +The scheme was very ingenious; it was, in fact, a lottery in which you +only paid for your ticket when you had drawn a prize. Till the lucky +number turned up, you never parted with your money. Was there ever any +such bribe held forth to a generation of unmarried and marriageable women? +There was everything that could captivate the mind: the tour on the +Continent—the family who loved society and shared it so generously—the +father so parental in his kindness, and who evidently gave the governess +the benediction of a parent on the day she may have married the count; and +all secured for what—for fifty pounds? No; but for the deposit, the +mere storing up of fifty pounds in a strong box; for if, after two years, +the lady neither married nor wished to remain, she could claim her money +and go her way. +</p> +<p> +The success was immense; and as the advertiser wrote replies from +different towns to different individuals, governesses arrived at Brussels, +at Coblentz, at Frankfort, at Mayence, at Munich, at Nice—and heaven +knows where besides—whose deposits were lodged in the hands of N. F. +That ingenious gentleman straightway departed, and was no more seen, and +only heard of when the distress and misery of these unhappy ladies had +found their way to the public press. The ‘Times,’ with all that ability +and energy it knows how to employ, took the matter up, published some of +the statements—very painful and pathetic they were—of the +unfortunate victims of this fraud, and gave more than one “leader” to its +exposure. Nor was the Government wanting in proper activity. Orders were +sent out from the Foreign Office to the different legations and consulates +abroad, to warn the police in the several districts against the +machinations of this artful scoundrel, should he chance to be in their +neighbourhood. Even more distinct instructions were sent out to certain +legations, by which R. N. F. could be arrested on charges that would at +least secure his detention till the law officers had declared what steps +could be taken in his behalf. It was not the age of photography, but a +very accurate description of the man’s appearance and address was +furnished, and his lofty stature, broad chest, burly look, and bushy +whiskers—a shade between red and auburn—were all duly posted +in each Chancellerie of the Continent. +</p> +<p> +For a while it seemed as if he lived in retirement—his late success +enabled this to be an “elegant retirement”—and it is said that he +passed it on the Lake of Como, in a villa near that of the once Queen +Caroline. There are traditions of a distinguished stranger—a man of +rank and a man of letters—who lived there estranged from all the +world, and deeply engaged in the education of his two sons. One of these +youths, however, not responding to all this parental devotion, involved +himself in some scrape, fled from his father’s roof, and escaped into +Switzerland. N. F., as soon as he could rally from the first shock of the +news, hastened after, to bring him back, borrowing a carriage from a +neighbouring nobleman in his haste. With this he crossed the frontier at +Chiasso, but never to come back again. The coachman, indeed, brought +tidings of the sale of the equipage, which the illustrious stranger had +disposed of, thus quitting a neighbourhood he could only associate with a +sorrowful past, and a considerable number of debts into the bargain. +Another blank occurs here in history, which autobiography alone perhaps +could fill. It would be unfair and un-philosophical to suppose that +because we cannot trace him he was inactive: we might as reasonably imply +that the moon ceased to move when we lost sight of her. At all events, +towards the end of autumn of that last year of the war in the Crimea, a +stout, well-dressed, portly man, with an air of considerable assurance, +swaggered into the Chancellerie of her Majesty’s Legation at Munich, +notwithstanding the representations of the porter, who would, if he had +dared, have denied him admittance, and asked, in a voice of authority, if +there were no letters there for Captain F. The gentleman to whom the +question was addressed was an attaché of the Legation, and at that time in +“charge” of the mission, the Minister being absent. Though young in years, +F. could scarcely, in the length and breadth of Europe, have fallen upon +one with a more thorough insight into every phase and form of those +mysteries by which the F. category of men exist. Mr L. was an actual +amateur in this way, and was no more the man to be angry with F. for being +a swindler, than with Ristori for being Medea or Macready being Macbeth. +Not that he had the slightest suspicion at the time of F.‘s quality, as he +assured him that there were no letters for that name. +</p> +<p> +“How provoking!” said the Captain, as he bit his lip. “They will be so +impatient in England,” muttered he to himself, “and I know Sidney Herbert +is sure to blame <i>me</i>.” Then he added aloud, “I am at a dead-lock +here. I have come from the Crimea with despatches, and expected to find +money here to carry me on to England; and these stupid people at the War +Office have forgotten all about it. Is it not enough to provoke a saint?” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t know; I never was a saint,” said the impassive attaché. +</p> +<p> +“Well, it’s trying to a sinner,” said F., with a slight laugh; for he was +one of those happy-natured dogs who are not indifferent to the absurd side +of even their own mishaps. “How long does the post take to England?” + </p> +<p> +“Three days.” + </p> +<p> +“And three back—that makes six; a week—an entire week.” + </p> +<p> +“Omitting Sunday,” said the grave attaché, who really felt an interest in +the other’s dilemma. +</p> +<p> +“All I can say is, it was no fault of mine,” cried F., after a moment. “If +I am detained here through their negligence, they must make the best +excuse they can. Have you got a cigar?” This was said with his eyes fixed +on a roll of Cubans on the table. +</p> +<p> +“Take one,” said the other. +</p> +<p> +“Thanks,” said F., as he selected three. “I’ll drop in to-morrow, and hope +to have better luck.” + </p> +<p> +“How much money do you want?” asked Mr L. +</p> +<p> +“Enough to carry me to London.” + </p> +<p> +“How much is that?” + </p> +<p> +“Let me see. Strasbourg—Paris, a day at Paris; Cowley might detain +me two days: fifteen or twenty pounds would do it amply.” + </p> +<p> +“You shall have it.” + </p> +<p> +“All right,” said F., who walked to the fire, and, lighting his cigar, +smoked away; while the other took some notes from a table-drawer and +counted them. +</p> +<p> +“Shall I give you a formal receipt for this?” asked F. +</p> +<p> +“You can tell them at the Office,” said L., as he dipped his pen into the +ink and continued the work he had been previously engaged in. F. said a +few civil words—the offhand gratitude of a man who was fully as much +in the habit of bestowing as of receiving favours, and withdrew. L. +scarcely noticed his departure; he was deep in his despatch, and wrote on. +At length he came to the happy landing-place, that spot of rest for the +weary foot—“I have the honour to be, my Lord,” and he arose and +stood at the fire. +</p> +<p> +As L. smoked his cigar he reflected, and as he reflected he remembered; +and, to refresh his memory, he took out some papers from a pigeon-hole, +and at last finding what he sought, sat down to read it. The document was +a despatch, dated a couple of years back, instructing H.M.‘s +representative at the Court of Munich to secure the person of a certain N. +F., and hold him in durance till application should be made to the +Bavarian Government for his extradition and conveyance to England. Then +followed a very accurate description of the individual—his height, +age, general looks, voice, and manner—every detail of which L. now +saw closely tallied with the appearance of his late visitor. +</p> +<p> +He pondered for a while over the paper, and then looked at his watch. It +was five o’clock! The first train to Augsburg was to start at six. There +was little time, consequently, to take the steps necessary to arrest a +person on suspicion; for he should first of all have to communicate with +the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who should afterwards back his +application to the Prefect of Police. The case was one for detail, and for +what the Germans insist upon, much writing—and there was very little +time to do it in. L., however, was not one to be easily defeated. +</p> +<p> +If baffled in one road, he usually found out another. He therefore wrote a +brief note to the Minister, stating that he might require his assistance +at a later hour of the evening, and at a time not usually official. This +done, he despatched another note to Captain E. F., saying familiarly it +was scarcely worth while trying to catch the mail-train that night, and +that perhaps instead he would come over and take a <i>tétè-à-tête</i> +dinner with him at the Legation. +</p> +<p> +F. was overjoyed as he read it! No man ever felt a higher pleasure in good +company, nor knew better how to make it profitable. If he had been asked +to choose, he would infinitely rather have had the invitation to dine than +the twenty pounds he had pocketed in the morning. The cognate men of the +world—and all members of the diplomatic career are to a certain +extent in this category—were in F.‘s estimation the “trump cards” of +the pack, with which he could “score tricks” innumerable, and so he +accepted at once; and, in a very few minutes after his acceptance, made +his appearance in a correct dinner-dress and a most unexceptionable white +tie. +</p> +<p> +“Couldn’t refuse that pleasant offer of yours, L.” (he was familiar at +once, and called him L.), “and here I am!” said he, as he threw himself +into an easy-chair with all the bland satisfaction of one who looked +forward to a good dinner and a very enjoyable evening. +</p> +<p> +“I am happy to have secured you,” said L., with a little laugh to himself +at the epigram of his phrase. “Do you like caviar?” + </p> +<p> +“Delight in it!” + </p> +<p> +“I have just got some fresh from St Petersburg, and our cook here is +rather successful in his caviar soup. We have a red trout from the <i>Tegen +See</i>, a saddle of Tyrol mutton, and a pheasant—<i>voilà votre +diner!</i> but I can promise you a more liberal <i>carte</i> in +drinkables; just say what you like in the way of wine!” + </p> +<p> +F.‘s face beamed over with ecstasy. It was one of the grand moments of his +life; and if he could, hungry as he was, he would have prolonged it! To be +there the guest of her Majesty’s mission; to know, to feel, that the arms +of England were over the door! that he was to be waited on by flunkies in +the livery of the Legation, fed by the cook who had ministered to official +palates, his glass filled with wine from the cellar of him who represented +royalty! These were very glorious imaginings; and little wonder that F., +whose whole life was a Poem in its way, should feel that they almost +overcame him. In fact, like the woman in the nursery song, he was ready to +exclaim, “This is none of me!” but still there were abundant evidences +around him that all was actual, positive, and real. +</p> +<p> +“By the way,” said L., in a light, careless way, “did you ever in your +wanderings chance upon a namesake of yours, only that he interpolates +another Christian name, and calls himself R. Napoleon F.?” + </p> +<p> +The stranger started: the fresh, ruddy glow of his cheek gave way to a +sickly yellow, and, rising from his chair, he said, “Do you mean to +‘split’ on me, sir?” + </p> +<p> +“I’m afraid, F.,” said the other, jauntily, “the thing looks ugly. You are +R. N. F.!” + </p> +<p> +“And are you, sir, such a scoundrel—such an assassin—as to ask +a man to your table in order to betray him?” + </p> +<p> +“These are strong epithets, F., and I’ll not discuss them; but if you ask, +Are you going to dine here today? I’d say, No. And if you should ask, +Where are, you likely to pass the evening? I’d hint, In the city jail.” + </p> +<p> +At this F. lost all command over himself, and broke out into a torrent of +the wildest abuse. He was strong of epithets, and did not spare them. He +stormed, he swore, he threatened, he vociferated; but L., imperturbable +throughout all, only interposed with an occasional mild remonstrance—a +subdued hint—that his language was less than polite or +parliamentary. At length the door opened, two gendarmes appeared, and N. +F. was consigned to their hands and removed. +</p> +<p> +The accusations against him were manifold; from before and since the day +of the governesses, he had been living a life of dishonesty and fraud. +German law proceedings are not characterised by any rash impetuosity; the +initial steps in F.‘s case took about eighteen months, during which he +remained a prisoner. At the end of this time the judges discovered some +informality in his committal; and as L. was absent from Munich, and no one +at the Legation much interested in the case, the man was liberated on +signing a declaration—to which Bavarian authorities, it would seem, +attach value—that he was “a rogue and a vagabond;” confessions which +the Captain possibly deemed as absurd an act of “surplusage” as though he +were to give a written declaration that he was a vertebrated animal and a +biped. +</p> +<p> +He went forth once more, and, difficult as it appears to the intelligence +of honest and commonplace folk, he went forth to prosper and live +luxuriously—so gullible is the world, so ready and eager to be +cheated and deceived. Sir Edward Lytton has somewhere declared that a +single number of the ‘Times’ newspaper, taken at random, would be the very +best and most complete picture of our daily life—the fullest +exponent of our notions, wants, wishes, and aspirations. Not a hope, nor +fear, nor prejudice—not a particle of our blind trustfulness, or of +our as blind unbelief, that would not find its reflex in the broadsheet. +R. N. F. had arrived at the same conclusion, only in a more limited sense. +The advertisement columns were all to him. What cared he for foreign wars, +or the state of the Funds? as little did he find interest in railway +intelligence, or “our own correspondent.” What he wanted was, the people +who inquired after a missing relative—a long-lost son or brother, +who was supposed to have died in the Mauritius or Mexico: an affectionate +mother who desired tidings as to the burial-place of a certain James or +John, who had been travelling in a particular year in the south of Spain: +an inquirer for the will of Paul somebody: or any one who could supply +evidence as to the marriage of Sarah Meekins <i>alias</i> Crouther, +supposed to have been celebrated before her Majesty’s Vice-Consul at +Kooroobakaboo—these were the paragraphs that touched him. +</p> +<p> +Never was there such a union of intelligence and sympathy as in him! He +knew everybody, and seemed not alone to have been known to, but actually +beloved by, every one. It was in <i>his</i> arms poor Joe died at Aden. <i>He</i> +gave away Maria at Tunis. He followed Tom to his grave at Corfu; and he +was the mysterious stranger who, on board the P. and O. boat, offered his +purse to Edward, and was almost offended at being denied. The way in which +this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines of a +newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was wanting in +the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at once into his +attributions. +</p> +<p> +A couple of years ago, an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, passed a +winter at Rome with her daughter, and in the mixed society of that capital +made acquaintance with a Polish Count of most charming manners and +fascinating address. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and ended in +an attachment which led to the marriage of the young lady with the +distinguished exile. +</p> +<p> +On arriving in England, however, it was discovered that the accomplished +Count was a common soldier, and a deserter from the Prussian army; and +means were accordingly had recourse to in order to obtain a divorce, and +the breach of a marriage accomplished under a fraudulent representation. +While the proceedings were but in the initiative, there came a letter from +Oneglia, near Nice, to the afflicted mother of the young lady, recalling +to her mind the elderly gentleman with the blue spectacles who usually sat +next her at the English Church at Rome. He was the writer of the present +letter, who, in turning over the columns of the ‘Times’ read the +melancholy story of her daughter’s betrayal and misery. By one of those +fortunate accidents more frequent in novels than in life, he had the means +of befriending her, and very probably of rescuing her from her present +calamity. He, the writer, had actually been present at the wedding, and as +a witness had signed the marriage-certificate of that same <i>soi-disant</i> +Count Stanislaus Sobieski Something-or-other, at Lemberg, in the year ‘49, +and knew that the unhappy but deserted wife was yet living. A certain +momentary pressure of money prevented his at once coming to England to +testify to this fact; but if a small sum, sufficient to pay a little +balance he owed his innkeeper and wherewithal to make his journey to +England, were forwarded to the address of Frederick Brooks, Esq., or +lodged to his account at the Bank of French & Co., Florence, he would +at once hasten to London and depose formally to every fact he had stated. +By the merest accident I myself saw this letter, which the lady had, for +more accurate information about the writer, sent to the banker at +Florence, and in an instant I detected the fine Roman hand of R. N. F. It +is needless to say that this shot went wide of the mark. +</p> +<p> +But that this fellow has lived for upwards of twenty years, travelling the +Continent in every direction, eating and drinking at the best hotels, +frequenting theatres, cafés, and public gardens, denying himself nothing, +is surely a shame and a disgrace to the police of Europe, which has been +usually satisfied to pass him over a frontier, and suffer him to continue +his depredations on the citizens of another state. Of the obloquy he has +brought upon his own country I do not speak. We must, I take it, have our +scoundrels like other people; the only great grievance here is, that the +fellow’s ubiquity is such that it is hard to believe that the swindler who +walked off with the five watches from Hamburg is the same who, in less +than eight days afterwards, borrowed fifty ducats from a waiter at Naples, +and “bolted.” + </p> +<p> +Of late I have observed he has dropped his second <i>prénom</i> of +Napoleon, and does not call himself by it. There is perhaps in this +omission a delicate forbearance, a sense of refined deference to the other +bearer of that name, whom he recognises as his master. +</p> +<p> +In the ingenuity of his manifold devices even religion has not escaped +him, and it would be impossible to count how often he has left the +“Establishment” for Rome, been converted, reconverted, reconciled, and +brought home again—always, be it noted, at the special charge of so +much money from the Church Fund, or a subscription from the faithful, ever +zealous and eager to assist a really devout and truly sincere convert! +</p> +<p> +That this man is an aspiring and ambitious vagabond may be seen in the +occasional raids he makes into the very best society, without having, at +least to ordinary eyes, anything to obtain in these ventures, beyond the +triumph of seeing himself where exposure and detection would be certain to +be followed by the most condign punishment. At Rome, for instance—how, +I cannot say—he obtained admission to the Duc de Grammont’s +receptions; and at Florence, under the pretext of being a proprietor, and +“a most influential” one, of the ‘Times,’ he breakfasted, by special +invitation, with Baron Ricasoli, and had a long and most interesting +conversation with him as to the conditions—of course political—on +which he would consent to support Italian unity. These must have been done +in pure levity; they were imaginative excursions, thrown off in the spirit +of those fanciful variations great violinists will now and then indulge +in, as though to say, “Is there a path too intricate for me to thread, is +there a pinnacle too fine for me to balance on?” + </p> +<p> +A great deal of this fellow’s long impunity results from the shame men +feel in confessing to have been “done” by him. Nobody likes the avowal, +acknowledging, as it does, a certain defect in discrimination, and a +natural reluctance to own to having been the dupe of one of the most +barefaced and vulgar rogues in Europe. +</p> +<p> +There is one circumstance in this case which might open a very curious +psychological question; it is this: F.‘s victims have not in general been +the frank, open, free-giving, or trustful class of men; on the contrary, +they have usually been close-fisted, cold, cautious people, who weigh +carefully what they do, and are rarely the dupes of their own +impulsiveness. F. is an Irishman, and yet his successes have been far more +with English—ay, even with Scotchmen—than with his own +countrymen. +</p> +<p> +In part this may be accounted for by the fact that F. did not usually +present himself as one in utter want and completely destitute; his appeal +for money was generally made on the ground of some speculation that was to +repay the lender; it was because he knew “something to your advantage” + that he asked for that £10. He addressed himself, in consequence, to the +more mercantile spirit of a richer community—to those, in fact, who, +more conversant with trade, better understood the meaning of an +investment. +</p> +<p> +But there was another, and, as I take it, a stronger and less fallible +ground for success. This fellow has, what all Irishmen are more or less +gifted with, an immense amount of vitality, a quality which undeniably +makes a man companionable, however little there may be to our taste in his +manner, his education, or his bearing. This same vitality imparts itself +marvellously to the colder temperaments of others, and gives out its own +warmth to natures that never of themselves felt the glow of an impulse, or +the glorious furnace-heat of a rash action. +</p> +<p> +This was the magnetism he worked with. “Canny” Scotchmen and shrewd +Yankees—ay, even Swiss innkeepers—felt the touch of his +quality. There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, +in its apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, +and it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow so open and +unguarded. +</p> +<p> +Now Paddy has seen a good deal of this at home, and could no more be +humbugged by it than he could believe a potato to be a truffle. +</p> +<p> +F. was too perfect an artist ever to perform in an Irish part to an Irish +audience, and so he owes little or nothing to the land of his birth. +</p> +<p> +Apart from his unquestionable success, which of course settles the +question, I would not have called him a great performer—indeed, my +astonishment has always been how he succeeded, or with whom. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t tell me of Beresford’s blunders,” said the Great Duke after +Albuera. “Did he beat Soult? if so, he was a good officer.” + </p> +<p> +This man’s triumphs are some twenty odd years of expensive living, with +occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines on +venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of the +galleys, and his diet the black bread of a convict. +</p> +<p> +The injury these men do in life is not confined to the misery their +heartless frauds inflict, for the very humblest and poorest are often +their victims: they do worse, in the way they sow distrust and suspicion +of really deserving objects, in the pretext they afford the miserly man to +draw closer his purse-strings, and “not be imposed on;” and, worst of all, +in the ill repute they spread of a nation which, not attractive by the +graces of manner or the charms of a winning address, yet cherished the +thought that in truthfulness and fair dealing there was not one could +gainsay it. +</p> +<p> +As I write, I have just heard tidings of R. N. F. One of our most +distinguished travellers and discoverers, lately returning from Venice to +the South, passed the night at Padua, and met there what he described as +an Indian officer—Major Newton—who was travelling, he said, +with a nephew of Lord Palmer-ston’s. +</p> +<p> +The Major was a man fall of anecdote, and abounded in knowledge of people +and places; he had apparently been everywhere with everybody, and, with a +communicativeness not always met with in old soldiers, gave to the +stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the evening +wore on, he told too how he was waiting there for a friend, a certain N. +F., who was no other than himself, the nephew of Lord Palmerston being +represented by his son, an apt youth, who has already given bright promise +of what his later years may develop. +</p> +<p> +N. F. retired to bed at last, so much overcome by brandy-and-water that my +informant escaped being asked for a loan, which I plainly see he would not +have had the fortitude to have refused; and the following morning he +started so early that N. F., wide awake as he usually is, was not vigilant +enough to have anticipated. +</p> +<p> +I hope these brief details, <i>pour servir à l’histoire de Monsieur R. N. +F.</i>, may save some kind-hearted traveller from the designs of a +thorough blackguard, and render his future machinations through the press +more difficult to effect and more certain of exposure. +</p> +<p> +I had scarcely finished this brief, imperfect sketch, when I read in +‘Galignani’ the following:— +</p> +<p> +“Swindling on the Continent.—A letter from Venice of March 29 gives +us the following piece of information which may still be of service to +some of our readers, though, from the fact with which it concludes, it +would seem that the proceedings, of the party have been brought to a +standstill, at least for some time. This is not, however, it may be +recollected, the first occasion we have had to bring the conduct of the +individual referred to under the notice of our readers for similar +practices:— +</p> +<p> +“‘I am informed that one Mr Newton, <i>alias</i> Neville, <i>alias</i> +Fane, and with a dozen other <i>aliases</i>, has been arrested at Padua +for swindling. This ubiquitous gentleman has been travelling for some +years at the expense of hotel-keepers, and other geese easily fleeced, on +the Continent In the year 1862, Mr Neville and his two sons made their +suspicious appearance at Venice, and they now, minus the younger son, have +visited Padua as Mr Robert N. Newton and son, taking up their residence at +the Stella d’Oro. They arrived without luggage and without money, both of +which had been lost in the Danube; but they expected remittances from +India! The obliging landlord lent money, purchased clothes, fed them +gloriously, and contrived, between the 8th Feb. and 25th of March, to +become the creditor of Newton and son for 1000 swanzig. The expenses +continued, but the remittances never came. The patient landlord began to +lose that virtue, and denounced these <i>aliases</i> as swindlers. The +police of Vienna, hearing of the event, sent information that these two +accommodating gentlemen had practised the victimising art for two months +in December last at the Hotel Regina Inghilterre, at Pesth, run up a +current account of 700 florins, and decamped; and a hotel-keeper +recognised the scamps as having re-resided at the Luna, in Venice, in +1862, and “plucked some profit from that pale-faced moon.” Mr Newton’s +handwriting proved him to be in 1863 one Major Fane, who had generously +proposed to bring all his family, consisting of ten persons, to pass the +winter at the Barbesi Hotel at Venice, if the proprietor would forward him +700 fr., as, owing to his wife’s prolonged residence at Rome and Naples, +he was short of money, which, however, he expected, would cease on the +arrival of supplies from Calcutta. These gentlemen are now in durance +vile, and there is no doubt but that this letter will lead to their +recognition by many other victims.’” + </p> +<p> +Let no sanguine enthusiast for the laws of property imagine, however, that +this great man’s career is now ended, and that R. N. F. will no more go +forth as of old to plunder and to rob. Imprisonment for debt is a grievous +violation of personal liberty certainly, but it is finite; and some fine +morning, when the lark is carolling high in heaven, and the bright +rivulets are laughing in the gay sunlight, R. N. F. will issue from his +dungeon to taste again the sweets of liberty, and to partake once more of +the fleshpots of some confiding landlord. F. is a man of great resources, +doubtless. When he repeats a part, he feels the same sort of repugnance +that Fechter would to giving a fiftieth representation of Hamlet, but he +would bow to the necessity which a clamorous public imposes, however his +own taste might rebel against the dreariness of the task. Still, I feel +assured that he will next appear in a new part. We shall hear of him—that +is certain. He will be in search of a lost will, by which he would inherit +millions, or a Salvator Rosa that he has been engaged to buy for the +Queen, or perhaps he will be a missionary to assist in that religious +movement now observable in Italy. How dare I presume, in my narrow +inventiveness, to suggest to such a master of the art as he is? I only +know that, whether he comes before the world as the friend of Sir Hugh +Rose, a proprietor of the ‘Times,’ the agent of Lord Palmerston, or a +recent convert from Popery, he will sustain his part admirably; and that +same world that he has duped, robbed, and swindled for more than a quarter +of a century will still feed and clothe him—still believe in the +luggage that never comes, and the remittance that will never turn up. +</p> +<p> +After all, the man must be a greater artist than I was willing to believe +him to be. He must be a deep student of the human heart—not, +perhaps, in its highest moods; and he must well understand how to touch +certain chords which give their response in unlimited confidence and long +credit. +</p> +<p> +No doubt there must be some wondrous fascination in these changeful +fortunes—these ups and downs of life—otherwise no man could +have gone, as he has, for nigh thirty years, hunted, badgered, insulted, +and imprisoned in almost every capital of Europe, and yet no sooner +liberated than, like a giant refreshed, he again returns to his old toil, +never weary wherever the bread of idleness can be eaten, and where a lie +will pay for his liquor. +</p> +<p> +Talk of novel-writers—this is the great master of fiction—the +man who brings the product of imagination to the real test of credibility—the +actual interest of his public. Let him fail in his description, his +narrative, the progress of his events, or their probability, and he is +ruined at once. He must not alone arrange the circumstances of his story, +but he must perform the hero, and that, too, as we saw lately at Padua, +without any adventitious aid of dress or costume. I can fancy what a sorry +figure some of our popular tale-writers would present if they had to +appeal to an innkeeper with this poor story of their luggage lost in the +Danube. What a contempt the rascal must have had for Italian notions of +geography, too, when he adopted a river so remote from where he stood! And +yet I’d swear he was as cool, as collected, and as self-sustained at that +moment, as ever was Mr Gladstone in the House as he rose to move a motion +of supply. +</p> +<p> +Well, he is in Padua now, doubtless dreaming of fresh conquests, and not +impossibly speculating on a world whose gullibility is indeed infinite, +and which actually seems to take the same pleasure in being cheated in +Fact as it does in being deceived in Fiction. Who knows if the time is not +coming when, instead of sending a box of new novels to the country, some +Mr Mudie will despatch one of these R. N. F. folk by a fast train, with a +line to say, “A great success: his Belgian rogueries most amusing; the +exploit at Madrid equal to anything in ‘Gil Bias’.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +GÀRIBÀLDI +</h2> +<p> +We had a very witty Judge in Ireland, who was not very scrupulous about +giving hard knocks to his brothers on the bench, and who, in delivering a +judgment in a cause, found that he was to give the casting-vote between +his two colleagues, who were diametrically opposed to each other, and who +had taken great pains to lay down the reasons for their several opinions +at considerable length. “It now comes to my turn,” said he, “to declare my +view of this case, and fortunately I can afford to be brief. I agree with +my brother B. from the irresistible force of the admirable argument of my +brother M.” + </p> +<p> +The story occurred to me as I thought over Garibaldi and the enthusiastic +reception you gave him in England; for I really felt, if it had not been +for Carlyle, I might have been a bit of a hero-worshipper myself The grand +frescoes in caricature of the popular historian have, however, given me a +hearty and wholesome disgust to the whole thing; not to say that, however +enthusiastic a man may feel about his idol, he must be sorely ashamed of +his fellow-worshippers. “Lie down with dogs, and you’ll get up with +fleas,” says an old Irish adage; but what, in the name of all entomology, +is a man to get up with who lies down with these votaries of Garibaldi? So +fine a fellow, and so mangy a following, it would be hard to find. The +opportunity for all the blatant balderdash of shopkeeping eloquence, of +that high “Falootin” style so popular over the Atlantic, of those +grand-sounding periods about freedom and love of country, was not to be +lost by a set of people who, in all their enthusiasm for Garibaldi, are +intently bent on making themselves foreground figures in the tableau that +should have been filled by himself alone. +</p> +<p> +“Sir Francis Burdett call <i>you</i> his friend!—as well call a Bug +his bedfellow!” said the sturdy old yeoman, whose racy English I should +like to borrow, to characterise the stupid incongruity between Garibaldi +and his worshippers. It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, +more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified, than the man himself. +His noble head; his clear, honest, brown eye; his finely-traced mouth, +beautiful as a woman’s, and only strung up to sternness when anything +ignoble or mean had outraged him; and, last of all, his voice contains a +fascination perfectly irresistible, allied, as you knew and felt these +graces were, with a thoroughly pure, untarnished nature. The true measure +of the man lies in the fact that, though his life has been a series of the +boldest and most daring achievements, his courage is about the very last +quality uppermost in your mind when you meet him. It is of the winning +softness of his look and manner, his kind thoughtfulness for others, his +sincere pity for all suffering, his gentleness, his modesty, his manly +sense of brotherhood with the very humblest of the men who have loved him, +that you think: these are the traits that throw all his heroism into +shadow; and all the glory of the conqueror pales before the simple virtues +of the man. +</p> +<p> +He never looked to more advantage than in that humble life of Caprera, +where people came and went—some, old and valued friends, whose +presence warmed up their host’s heart; others, mere passing acquaintances, +or, as it might be, not even that; worshippers or curiosity-seekers—living +where and how they could in that many-roomed small house; diving into the +kitchen to boil their coffee; sallying out to the garden to pluck their +radishes; down to the brook for a cress, or to the seaside to catch a +fish,—all more or less busy in the midst of a strange idleness; for +there was not—beyond providing for the mere wants of the day—anything +to be done. The soil would not yield anything. There was no cultivation +outside that little garden, where the grand old soldier delved, or rested +on his spade-handle as he turned his gaze over the sea, doubtless thinking +of the dear land beyond it. +</p> +<p> +At dinner—and what a strange meal it was—all met, full of the +little incidents of an uneventful day. The veriest trifles they were, but +of interest to those who listened, and to none more than Garibaldi +himself, who liked to hear who had been over to Maddalena, and what sport +they had; or whether Albanesi had taken any mullet, and who it was said he +could mend the boat? and who was to paint her? Not a word was spoken of +the political events of the world, and every mention of them was as +rigidly excluded as though a government spy had been seated at the table. +</p> +<p> +He rarely spoke himself, but was a good listener—not merely hearing +with attention, but showing, by an occasional suggestion or a hint, how +his mind speculated on the subject before him. If, however, led to speak +of himself or his exploits, the unaffected ease and simplicity of the man +became at once evident. Never, by any chance, would an expression escape +him that redounded to his own share in any achievement; without any +studied avoidance the matter would somehow escape, or, if accidentally +touched on, be done so very lightly as to make it appear of no moment +whatever. +</p> +<p> +To have done one-tenth of what Garibaldi has done, a man must necessarily +have thrown aside scruples which he would never have probably transgressed +in his ordinary life. He must have been often arbitrary, and sometimes +almost cruel; and yet, ask his followers, and they will tell you that +punishment scarcely existed in the force under his immediate command—that +the most hardened offender would have quailed more under a few stern words +of reproof from “the General” than from a sentence that sent him to a +prison. +</p> +<p> +That, to effect his purpose, he would lay hands on what he needed, not +recklessly or indifferently, but thoughtfully and doubtless regretfully, +we all know. I can remember an instance of this kind, related to me by a +British naval officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. “It was off +La Plata,” said my informant, “when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, that +the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small gun-brig +of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never harassed his men by exercises +of gunnery, and, indeed, whose ship was as free from any ‘beat to +quarters,’ or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though she +had been a floating chapel. +</p> +<p> +“Garibaldi came alongside me one day to say that he had learned the +Sardinian had several tons of powder on board, with an ample supply of +grape, shell, and canister, not to speak of twelve hundred stand of +admirable arms. ‘I want them all,’ said he; ‘my people are fighting with +staves and knives, and we are totally out of ammunition. I want them, and +he won’t let me have them.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘He could scarcely do so,’ said I, ‘seeing that they belong to his +Government, and are not in <i>his</i> hands to bestow.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘For that reason I must go and take them,’ said Garibaldi. ‘I mean to +board him this very night, and you’ll see if we do not replenish our +powder-flasks.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘In that case,’ said I, ‘I shall have to fire on you. It will be Piracy; +nothing else.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘You’ll not do so;’ said he, smiling. +</p> +<p> +“‘Yes, I promise you that I will. We are at peace and on good terms with +Sardinia, and I cannot behave other than as a friend to her ships of war.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘There’s no help for it, then,’ said Garibaldi, ‘if you see the thing in +that light:’ and good-humouredly quitted the subject, and soon after took +his leave.” + </p> +<p> +“And were you,” asked I of my informant, Captain S.——“were you +perfectly easy after that conversation? I mean, were you fully satisfied +that he would not attempt the matter in some other way?” + </p> +<p> +“Never more at ease in my life. I knew my man; and that, having left me +under the conviction he had abandoned the exploit, nothing on earth would +have tempted him to renew it in any shape.” + </p> +<p> +It might be a matter of great doubt whether any greater intellectual +ability would not have rather detracted from than increased Garibaldi’s +power as a popular leader. I myself feel assured that the simplicity, the +trustfulness, the implicit reliance on the goodness of a cause as a reason +for its success, are qualities which no mere mental superiority could +replace in popular estimation. It is actually Love that is the sentiment +the Italians have for him; and I have seen them, hard-featured, ay, and +hard-natured men, moved to tears as the litter on which Garibaldi lay +wounded was carried down to the place of embarkation. +</p> +<p> +Garibaldi has always been a thoughtful, silent, reflective man, not +communicative to others, or in any way expansive; and from these qualities +have come alike his successes and his failures. Of the conversations +reported of him by writers I do not believe a syllable. He speaks very +little; and, luckily for him, that little only with those on whose +integrity he can rely not to repeat him. +</p> +<p> +Cavour, who knew men thoroughly, and studied them just as closely as he +studied events, understood at once that Garibaldi was the man he wanted. +He needed one who should move the national heart—who, sprung from +the people himself, and imbued with all the instincts of his class, should +yet not dissever the cause of liberty from the cause of monarchy. To +attach Garibaldi to the throne was no hard task. The King, who led the van +of his army, was an idol made for such worship as Garibaldi’s. The monarch +who could carry a knapsack and a heavy rifle over the cliffs of Monte Rosa +from sunrise to sunset, and take his meal of hard bread before he “turned +in” at night in a shepherd’s shieling, was a King after the bold +buccaneer’s own heart. +</p> +<p> +To what end inveigh against the luxuries of a court, its wasteful +splendours, or its costly extravagance, with such an example? This +strong-sinewed, big-boned, unpoetical King has been the hardest nut ever +republicanism had to crack! +</p> +<p> +It might be possible to overrate the services Garibaldi has rendered to +Italy—it would be totally impossible to exaggerate those he has +rendered the Monarchy; and out of Garibaldi’s devotion to Victor Emmanuel +has sprung that hearty, honest, manly appreciation of the King which the +Italians unquestionably display. A merely political head of the State, +though he were gifted with the highest order of capacity, would have +disappeared altogether from view in the sun-splendour of Garibaldi’s +exploits; not so the King Victor Emmanuel, who only shone the brighter in +the reflected blaze of the hero who was so proud to serve him. +</p> +<p> +Yet for all that friendship, and all the acts that grew out of it, natural +and spontaneous as they are, one great mind was needed to guide, direct, +encourage, or restrain. It was Cavour who, behind the scenes, pulled all +the wires; and these heroes—heroes they were too—were but his +puppets. +</p> +<p> +Cavour died, and then came Aspromonte. +</p> +<p> +If any other man than Garibaldi had taken the present moment to make a +visit—an almost ostentatious visit—to Mazzini, it might be a +grave question how far all the warm enthusiasm of this popular reception +could be justified. Garibaldi is, however, the one man in Europe from whom +no one expects anything but impulsive action. It is in the very +unreflectiveness of his generosity that he is great. There has not been, I +am assured, for many years back, any very close or intimate friendship +between these two men; but it was quite enough that Mazzini was in trouble +and difficulty, to rally to his side that brave-hearted comrade who never +deserted his wounded. Nor is there in all Garibaldi’s character anything +finer or more exalted than the steadfast adherence he has ever shown to +his early friendships. No flatteries of the great—no blandishments +of courts and courtiers—none of those seductive influences which are +so apt to weave themselves into a man’s nature when surrounded by +continual homage and admiration—not any of these have corrupted that +pure and simple heart; and there is not a presence so exalted, nor a scene +of splendour so imposing, as could prevent Garibaldi from recognising with +eager delight any the very humblest companion that ever shared hardship +and danger beside him. +</p> +<p> +To have achieved his successes, a man must of necessity have rallied +around him many besides enthusiasts of the cause; he must have recruited +amongst men of broken fortunes—reckless, lawless fellows, who +accepted the buccaneer’s life as a means of wiping off old scores with +that old world “that would have none of them.” It was not amidst the +orderly, the soberly-trained, and well-to-do that he could seek for +followers. And what praise is too great for him who could so inspire this +mass, heaving with passion as it was, with his own noble sentiments, and +make them feel that the work before them—a nation’s regeneration—was +a task too high and too holy to be accomplished by unclean hands? Can any +eulogy exaggerate the services of a man who could so magnetise his +fellow-men as to associate them at once with his nobility of soul, and +elevate them to a standard little short of his own? That he <i>did</i> do +this we have the proof. Pillage was almost unknown amongst the +Garibaldians; and these famished, ill-clad, shoeless men marched on from +battle to battle with scarcely an instance of crime that called for the +interference of military law. +</p> +<p> +Where is the General who could boast of doing as much? Where is the leader +who could be bold enough to give such a pledge for his followers? Is there +an army in Europe—in the world—for whom as much could be said? +</p> +<p> +All honour, therefore, to the man—not whose example only, but whose +very contact suggests high intent and noble action. All honour to him who +brings to a great cause, not alone the dazzling splendour of heroism, but +the more enduring brightness of a pure and unsullied integrity! +</p> +<p> +Such a man may be misled; he can never be corrupted. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A NEW INVESTMENT. +</h2> +<p> +I am not so sure how far we ought to be grateful for it, but assuredly the +fact is so, that nothing has so much tended to show the world with what +little wisdom it is governed than the Telegraph. It is not merely that +cabinets are no longer the sole possessors of early intelligence, though +this alone was once a very great privilege; and there is no +over-estimating the power conferred by the exclusive possession of a piece +of important news—a battle won or lost, the outbreak of a +revolution, the overthrow of a throne—even for a few hours before it +became the property of the public. The telegraph, however, is the great +disenchanter. The misty uncertainty, the cloud-like indistinctness that +used of old to envelop all ministerial action, converting Downing Street +into a sort of Olympus, and making a small mythology out of +Precis-writers, is all gone, all dispersed. Three or four cold hard lines, +thin and terse as the wire that conveyed them, are sworn enemies to all +style, and especially to all the evasive cajoleries of those dissolving +views of events diplomacy loves to revel in. What becomes of the graceful +drapery in which statesmen used to clothe the great facts of the world, +when a simple despatch, “fifteen words, exclusive of the address,” tells +the whole story? and when we have read that “the insurgents are triumphant +everywhere, the king left the capital at four o’clock, a provisional +government was proclaimed this morning,” and suchlike, what do we care for +the sonorous periods in which official priestcraft chants the downfall of +a dynasty? +</p> +<p> +The great stronghold of statecraft was, however, Speculation—I mean +that half-prophetic view of events which we always conceded to those who +looked over the world from a higher window than ourselves. What has become +of this now? Who so bold as to predict what, while he is yet speaking, may +be contradicted? who is there hardy enough to forecast what the events of +the last half-hour may have falsified, and five minutes more will serve to +publish to the whole world? +</p> +<p> +It may be amusing to read the comments of the speech or the leading +article, but the “despatch” is the substance: and however clever the +variations, the original melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine to +himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of all its +incidents—how insupportable would the slow procession of events +become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort of +Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded those who +differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat below the +“gangway.” There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic devices of +those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many men are their own +priests, their lawyers, and their doctors, and where, certes, each man is +his own prophet. +</p> +<p> +These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I took +yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our +diplomatists—one of those men who seem to weld into their happy +natures all the qualities which make good companionship, and blend with +the polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep +reflectiveness of a man of the world—a man to whom nothing comes +wrong, and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his +element at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands. +</p> +<p> +“I say, O’Dowd,” cried he, after a pause of some time in our conversation, +“has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires are destined to +be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within a very few years +neither of our occupations will have a representative left? Take my word +for it,” said he, more solemnly, “in less than ten years from the present +date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as a posthorse, and a post-shay not +more a curiosity than a minister-plenipotentiary.” + </p> +<p> +“Do you really think so?” + </p> +<p> +“I am certain of it. People nowadays won’t travel eight miles an hour, or +be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they’ve happened. Life is +too short for all this now, and, as we can’t lengthen our days, we must +shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman Mathews +used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, ‘Let me have +some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.’ Have you ever thought +seriously on the matter?” + </p> +<p> +“Never,” said I. +</p> +<p> +“You ought, then,” said he. “I tell you again, we are all in the same +category with flint locks and wooden ships—we belong to the past. +Don’t you know it? Don’t you feel it?” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t like to feel it,” said I, peevishly. +</p> +<p> +“Nonsense!” cried he, laughing. “Self-deception does nothing in the +matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a ‘smooth-Bore.’ +What ‘our own correspondent’ represents, I leave to your own modesty.” + </p> +<p> +“It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge,” said +I, gloomily. +</p> +<p> +“Of course it will, but there’s no help for it. Old novels go to the +trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-balls in +the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also? At +all events, I have a scheme for our transition state—a plan I have +long revolved in my mind—and there’s certainly something in it. +</p> +<p> +“First of all realise it, as the Yankees say, that neither a government +nor a public will want either of us. When the wires have told that the +Grand-Duke Strong-grog-enofif was assassinated last night, or that Prince +Damisseisen has divorced his wife and married a milliner, Downing Street +and Printing-house Square will agree that all the moral reflections the +events inspire can be written just as well in Piccadilly as from a palace +on the Neva, or a den on the Danube. Gladstone will be the better pleased, +and take another farthing off ‘divi-divi,’ or some other commodity in +general use and of universal appreciation. Don’t you agree to that?” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t know.” + </p> +<p> +“You don’t know,” drawled he out, in mimicry of my tone: “are you so +conceited about your paltry craft that you fancy the world cares for the +manner of it, or that there is really any excellence in the cookery? Not a +bit of it, man. We are bores both of us; and what’s worse—far worse—we +are bygones. Can’t you see that when a man buys a canister of prepared +beef-tea, he never asks any one to pour on the boiling water—he +brews his broth for himself? This is what people do with the telegrams. +They don’t want you or me to come in with the kettle: besides, all tastes +are not alike; one man may like his Bombardment of Charleston weaker; +another might prefer his Polish Massacre more highly flavoured. This is +purely a personal matter. How can you suit the capricious likings of the +million, and of the million—for that’s the worst of it—the +million that don’t want you? What a practical rebuke, besides, to prosy +talkers and the whole long-winded race, the sharp, short tap of the +telegraph! Who would listen to a narrative of Federal finance when he has +read ‘Gold at 204—Chase rigged the market’? Who asks for strategical +reasons in presence of ‘Almighty whipping—lost eighty thousand—Fourth +Michigan skedaddled ‘? +</p> +<p> +“How graphic will description become—how laconic all comment! You +will no more listen to one of the old circumlocutionary conversers than +you would travel by the waggon, or make a voyage in a collier. +</p> +<p> +“How, I would ask, could the business of life go on in an age active as +ours if all coinage was in copper, and vast transactions in money should +be all conducted in the base metal? Imagine the great Kings of Finance +counting over the debts of whole nations in penny-pieces, and you have at +once a picture of what, until a few years ago, was our intellectual +condition. How nobly Demosthenic our table-talk will be!—how grandly +abrupt and forensic! +</p> +<p> +“There is nothing, however, over which I rejoice more than in the utter +extinction of the anecdote-mongers—the insufferable monsters who +related Joe Millers as personal experiences, or gave you their own +versions of something in the morning papers. Thank heaven they are done +for! +</p> +<p> +“Last of all, the unhappy man who used to be sneered at for his silence in +company, will now be on a par with his fellows. The most bashful will be +able to blurt out, ‘Poles massacred,’ ‘Famine in Ireland,’ ‘Feast at the +Mansion House,’ ‘Collision at Croydon,’ ‘Bank discount eleven.’ +</p> +<p> +“Who will dare to propagate scandal, when all amplification is denied him? +How much adulteration will the liquor bear which is measured by drop? Nor +will the least of our benefits be the long, reflective pauses—those +brilliant ‘flashes of silence’ which will supersede the noise, turmoil, +and confusion of what we used to call conversation. No, no, Corneli mi. +The game is up. ‘Our own Correspondent’ is a piece that has run its +course, and there’s nothing to do but take a farewell benefit and quit the +boards.” + </p> +<p> +“If I could fall back on my pension like you, I’d perhaps take the matter +easier,” said I, gruffly. +</p> +<p> +“Well, I think you ought to be pensioned. If I was a Minister, I’d propose +it. My notion is this: The proper subjects for pension are those who, if +not provided for by the State, are likely to starve. They are, +consequently, the class of persons who have devoted their lives to an +unmarketable commodity—such as poonah-painting, Berlin-wool work, +despatch-writing, and suchlike. I’d include ‘penny-a-lining’—don’t +be offended because you get twopence, perhaps. I’d pension the whole of +them—pretty much as I’d buy off the organ-man, and request him to +move on.” + </p> +<p> +“As, however,” said I, “we are not fortunate enough to figure in the +Estimates, may I ask what is the grand scheme you propose for our +employment?” + </p> +<p> +“I’m coming to it. I’d have reached it ere this, if you had not required +such a positive demonstration of your utter uselessness. You have delayed +me by what Guizot used to call ‘an obstructive indisposition to believe.’” + </p> +<p> +“Go on; I yield—that is, under protest.” “Protest as much as you +like. In diplomacy a protest means, ‘I hope you won’t; but if you will, I +can’t help it,’ <i>Vide</i> the correspondence about the annexation of +Nice and Savoy. Now to my project. It is to start a monster hotel—one +of those gigantic establishments for which the Americans are famous—in +some much-frequented part of Europe, and to engage as part of the +household all the ‘own time’ celebrities of diplomacy and letters. Every +one knows—most of us have, indeed, felt—the desire experienced +to see, meet, and converse with the noticeable men of the world—the +people who, so to say, leave their mark on the age they live in—the +cognate signs of human algebra. Only fancy, then, with what ecstasy would +the traveller read the prospectus of an establishment wherein, as in a +pantheon, all the gods were gathered around him. What would not the Yankee +give for a seat at a table where the great Eltchi ladled out the soup, and +the bland-voiced author of ‘The Woman in White’ lisped out, ‘Sherry, sir?’ +Only imagine being handed one’s fish by the envoy that got us into the +Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the accomplished writer of +‘Orley Farm’! Picture a succession of celebrities in motion around the +table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious sentiment of the man +that could say, ‘Lyons, a little more fat;’ or, ‘Carlyle, madeira;’ and +imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so gracefully handed you by ‘Lost +and Saved,’ and the culminating pride of taking your flat candlestick from +the fingers of ‘Eleanor’s Victory.’ +</p> +<p> +“Who would not cross the great globe to live in such an atmosphere of +genius and grandeur? for if there be, as there may, souls dead to the +charms of literary greatness, who in this advanced age of ours is +indifferent to the claims of high rank and station and title? Fancy +sending a K.C.B. to call a cab, or ordering a special envoy to fetch the +bootjack! I dare not pursue the theme. I cannot trust myself to dwell on a +subject so imbued with suggestiveness—all the varying and wondrous +combinations such a galaxy of splendour and power would inevitably +produce. What wit, what smartness, what epigram would abound! What a +hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms and profound +reflections! How I see with my mind’s eye the literary traveller trying to +overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they wash up their +glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with a cigar, well +knowing his charming article on Dickens. +</p> +<p> +“The class-writers would of course have their specialties. ‘Soapy-Sponge’ +would figure in the stable-yard, and ‘Proverbial Philosophy’ watch the +trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be obtained for a room in such +an establishment, and every place at the <i>table-d’hôte</i> should be +five guineas at least. For, after all, what would be an invitation to +Compiègne to a sojourn here? Material advantages might possibly incline to +the side of the Imperial board; but would any one presume to say that the +company in the one was equal to the ‘service’ at the other? Who would +barter the glorious reality of the first for the mean and shallow mockery +of the last? Last of all, how widespread and powerful would be the +influence of such an establishment over the manners of our time! Would +Cockneyism, think you, omit its H’s in presence of that bland individual +who offers him cheese? Would presumption dare to criticise in view of that +‘Quarterly’ man who is pouring out the bitter beer? What a check on the +expansive balderdash of the ‘gent’ at his dessert to know and feel that +‘Adam Bede’ was behind him! +</p> +<p> +“Would Brown venture on that anecdote of Jones if the napkin-in-hand +listener should be an ex-envoy renowned for his story-telling? Who would +break down in his history, enunciate a false quantity, misquote a speech, +or mistake the speaker, in such hearing? Some one might object to the +position and to the functions I assign to persons of a certain +distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act as a +hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I confess I +do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we are pleased to +call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, and that the man who +feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, capacity, and +attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior in station and +condition, has within his heart a pride all the more exalting that it is +stimulated by the sense of a great injustice, and the profound +consciousness that it is to himself, to his own nature, he must look to +redress the balance that fortune would set against him. +</p> +<p> +“In the brilliant conversation of the servants’ hall, then, would these +many gifted men take their revenge; and what stores of good stories, what +endless drolleries, what views of life, and what traits of character, +would they derive from the daily opportunities! It has constantly been +remarked by foreigners that there is no trait of our national manners less +graceful in itself than the way in which inferiors, especially menials, +are addressed in England. It is alleged, perhaps with some truth, that we +mark every difference of class more decisively than other nations; and +certainly in our treatment of servants there is none of that same +confidential tone so amusing in a French vaudeville. The scheme I now +suggest will be the effective remedy for this. +</p> +<p> +“Will Jones, think you, presume to be imperative if it be Alfred Tennyson +who has brought up his hot water? Will Brown be critical about the polish, +if it be Owen Meredith has taken him his boots? Will even Snooks cry out, +‘Holloa, you fellow!’ to a passing waiter, if the individual so addressed +might chance to be an Oriental Secretary or a Saturday Reviewer? +</p> +<p> +“And would the most infatuated of Bagmen venture on what O’Connell used to +call a ‘chuck-under-the-chin manner,’ were the chamber-maid to be Margaret +Maitland? +</p> +<p> +“Such, in brief, is my plan, O’Dowd; nor is the least of its advantages +that it gets rid of the Pension List, and that beggarly £1200 a-year by +which wealthy England assumes to aid the destitute sons and daughters of +letters. As for myself, I have fixed on my station. I mean to be +swimming-master, and the prospectus shall announce that His Excellency the +late Minister at the Court of——-ducks ladies every morning +from eight till nine. Think over the project, and drop me a hint as to the +sort of place would suit you.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. +</h2> +<p> +My diplomatic friend is rarely very serious in his humour; this morning, +however, he was rather disposed that way, and so I took the opportunity to +question him about Italy, a country where he has lived long, and whose +people he certainly understands better than most Englishmen. I gathered +from him that he considered the English were thoroughly well informed on +Italy, but in the most hopeless ignorance as to the Italians. “As for the +house and the furniture, you know it all.” said he; “but of the company +you know positively nothing.” + </p> +<p> +Byron understood them better than any other Englishman. He had his +admission <i>par la petite porte</i>—that is, he gained his +knowledge through his vices; and the Italians were so flattered to see a +great Milor adapt himself so readily to their lax notions and loose +morality that they grew frank and open with him. +</p> +<p> +His pretended—I suppose it was only pretended—dislike to +England disarmed them, too, of all distrust of him; and for the first time +they felt themselves judged by a man who did not think Charing Cross finer +than the Piazza del Popolo. +</p> +<p> +Byron’s rank and station gained him a ready acceptance where the masses of +our travelling countrymen would not be received; for the Italians love +rank, and respect all its gradations. Even the republics were great +aristocracies; and in all their imitations of France they have never +affected “equality.” They love splendour too, and display; and in all +their festivals you see something like an effort to recall a time when +their cities were the grandest and their citizens the proudest in all +Europe. +</p> +<p> +They are a very difficult people to understand. There are not so many +salient points in the Italian as in the German or the Frenchman; his +character is not so strongly accented; his traits are finer—his +shades of temperament more delicate. +</p> +<p> +Besides this, there is another difficulty: one is immensely aided in their +appreciation of a people by their lighter drama, which is in a measure a +reflex of the daily sayings and doings of those who listen to it. Now the +Italians have no comedy, or next to none; so barren are they in this +respect, that more than once have I asked myself, Can there be any +domesticity in a nation which has not mirrored itself on the stage? What +sort of a substance can that be that never had a shadow? +</p> +<p> +The immortal Goldoni, as they print him in all the play-bills, is +ineffably stupid, his characters ill drawn, his plots meagre, and his +dialogue as flat as the talk of a three-volume novel. The only palpable +lesson derivable from him is, that all ranks and classes stand pretty much +on an equality, and that as regards modes of expression the count and his +coachman are precisely on a level. There is scarcely a trait of humour in +these pieces—never, by any accident, anything bordering on wit. The +characters talk the veriest commonplaces, and announce the most humdrum +intentions in phraseology as flat and wearisome. +</p> +<p> +Now you will ask, perhaps, Is this a fair type of the present-day habits—are +the Italians of our time like those of Goldoni’s? My reply would be, that +it would be difficult to imagine a people who have changed less within a +century. The same small topics, the same petty interests engage them. They +display the same ardent enthusiasm about trifles, and the same thorough +indifference to great things, as their grandfathers; and they are +marvellously like the dreary puppets that the immortal dramatist has given +us as their representatives. +</p> +<p> +It has been reproached to Sheridan, that no people in real life ever +displayed such brilliancy in conversation as the characters in the ‘School +for Scandal;’ and tame as Goldoni reads, I verily believe his dialogue is +rather above the level of an Italian salon. +</p> +<p> +The great interests of Life, the game of politics, the contests and +reverses of party, literature in its various forms, and the sports of the +field, form topics which make the staple of our dinner-talk. Instead of +these the Italians have their one solitary theme—the lapses of their +neighbours, the scandals of the small world around them. Not that they are +uncharitable or malevolent; far from it. They discuss a frailty as a board +of physicians might a malady, and without the slightest thought of +imputing blame to “the patient.” They have now and then a hard word for an +unfortunate husband, but even him they treat rather as one ignorant of +conventional usages and the ways of the polite world, than as a man +radically bad or cruel. +</p> +<p> +They have in their blood the old Greek sensitiveness to suffering, and +they dislike painful scenes and disastrous catastrophes; and this +sentiment they carry to extremes. Although they have the finest +representative of Othello—Salvini—at this moment in Europe, +the terrible scene of the murder of Desdemona is a shock that many would +shrink from witnessing. They will bear any strain on the imagination, but +their fine-strung nerves revolt against the terrible in action. To this +natural refinement is owing much of that peculiar softness of manner and +reluctance to disoblige which foreigners frequently mistake for some +especial desire to win their favour. +</p> +<p> +The idleness which would make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on the +Italian. He knows how to “do nothing” with dignity. Be assured, if +Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him +down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went through his +tomfoolery gracefully. +</p> +<p> +And with all this, is it not strange that these are the people who furnish +the most reckless political enthusiasts of the world, and who, year after +year, go to the scaffold for “an idea”? There is something hysterical in +this Italian nature, which prompts to paroxysms like these—some of +that impulsive fury which, in the hill-tribes of India, sends down hordes +of fanatics to impale themselves on British bayonets. The men like Orsini +abound—calm of look, mild of speech, and gentle in manner, and yet +ready to commit the greatest of crimes and confront the most terrible of +deaths for a mere speculative notion—the possibility of certain +changes producing certain contingencies, and of which other changes are to +ensue, and Italy become something that she never was before, nor would the +rest of Europe suffer her to remain, if ever she attained to it. +</p> +<p> +Wine-tasters tell us it is vain to look for a bottle of unadulterated +port: I should in the same way declare that there are few rarer things to +be found than a purely Italian society. The charm of their glorious +climate; the beauty of their country, the splendour of their cities, rich +in centuries of associations, have attracted strangers from every corner +of the Old World and the New; and the salons of Italy are but +caravanserais, where all nations meet and all tongues are spoken. +</p> +<p> +The Italians like this; it flatters national pride, and it suits national +indolence. The outer barbarians from the Neva or the Thames have fine +houses and give costly entertainments. Their sterner looks and more robust +habits are meet subject for the faint little jests that are bandied in +some <i>patois</i>; and each thinks himself the superior of his neighbour. +But as for the home life of these people, who has seen it? What is known +of it? Into that long, lofty, arched-ceilinged drawing-room, lighted by +its one lamp, where sits the Signora with her daughter and the +grimy-looking, ill-shaven priest, there is not, perhaps, much temptation +to enter, nor is the conversation of a kind one would care to join in; and +there is but this, and the noisy, almost riotous, reception after the +opera, where a dozen people are contending at “Lansquenet,” while one or +perhaps two thump the piano, and some three or four shout rather than sing +the last popular melody of the season, din being accepted as gaiety, and a +clamour that would make deafness a blessing being taken for the delight of +a charmed assembly. +</p> +<p> +I have been told that Cavour once said, that no great change would be +accomplished in Italy till the Italians introduced the public-school +system of England. So long as the youth of the country were given up for +education to the priests—the most illiterate, narrow-minded, and +bigoted class in Europe—so long would they carry with them through +life the petty prejudices of their early days; or, in emancipating +themselves from these, fall into a scepticism whose baneful distrust would +damp the ardour of all patriotism, and sap the strength of every high and +generous emulation. As the great statesman said, “I want Italians to be +Italians, and not to be bad Frenchmen.” + </p> +<p> +With a Peninsular Eton or Rugby at work, who is to say what might not come +of a people whose intellectual qualities are unquestionably so great? The +system which imparts to boys the honourable sense of responsibility, the +high value of truthfulness, the scorn of all that is mean,—this is +what is wanting here. Let the Italian start in life with these, and it +would not be easy to set limits to what his country may become in +greatness. +</p> +<p> +I have never heard of a people with so little self-control; and their +crimes are, in a large majority of cases, the results of some passionate +impulse rather than of a matured determination to do wrong. It is by no +means uncommon to find that your butler or your coachman has taken to his +bed ill of a <i>rabbia</i>, as they call it—a fit of passion, in +plain words, brought on by a reproof he has considered unjust. This same +<i>rabbia</i> is occasionally a serious affair. Some short time ago, an +actor, who was hissed off the stage at Turin, went home and died of it; +and within a very few weeks, a case occurred in Florence which would be +laughable if it had not terminated so tragically. One of the new guardians +of the public safety, habited in a strange travestie of an English +police-costume, was followed through the streets by a crowd of boys, who +mocked and jeered him on his dress. Seeing that he resented their remarks +with temper, they only became more aggressive, and at last went so far as +to pursue him through the city with yells and cries. The man, overcome +with passion, got <i>rabbia</i>, and died. Ridicule is the one thing no +Italian can bear. When you lose temper with an Italian, and give way to +any show of violence before him, he is triumphant; his cheek glows, his +eye brightens, his chest expands, he sees he has you at a disadvantage, +and regards you as one who in a moment of passion has thrown his cards on +the table and exposed his hand. After this it is next to impossible to +regain your position before him. If you be calm, however, and if, besides +being calm, you can be sarcastic, he is overcome at once. +</p> +<p> +It is a rare thing—one of the rarest—to see this weapon +employed in the debates; but when it does occur, it is ever successful. +The fact is, that Wit, which forms the subtlety of other nations, is not +subtle enough for the Italian; and the edge that cuts so cleanly elsewhere +makes a jagged wound with them. +</p> +<p> +After all, they are very easy to live with. If the social atmosphere is +not very stimulating or invigorating, it is easy to breathe, and pleasant +withal; and one trait of theirs is not without its especial merit—they +are less under the control of conventionalities than any people I ever +heard of, and consequently have few affectations. If they do assume any +little part, or play off any little game, it is with the palpable object +of a distinct gain by it; never is it done for personal display or +individual glory. There are no more snobs in Italy than there are snakes +in Iceland; and that, after all, is, as the world goes, saying something +for a people. +</p> +<p> +Of all the nations of Europe, I know of none, save Italy, in which the +characters are the same in every class and gradation. The appeal you would +make to the Italian noble must be the same you would address to the humble +peasant on his property. The point of view is invariably identical; the +sympathies are always alike. No matter what differences education may have +instituted and habits implanted, the nobleman and his lackey think and +feel and reason alike. Separate them how you will in station, and they +will still approach the consideration of any subject in the same spirit, +and regard it with the same hopes and fears, the same expectations and +distrusts. To this trait, of whose existence Cavour well knew, was owing +the marvellous unanimity in the nation on the last war with Austria. The +appeal to the prince could be addressed, and was addressed, to the +peasant. There was not an argument that spoke to the one which was not +re-echoed in the heart of the other. In fact, the chain that binds the +social condition of Italy is shorter than elsewhere, and the extreme links +are less remote from each other than with most nations of Europe. +</p> +<p> +Every Italian is a conspirator, whether the question be the gravest or the +lightest; all must be done in it ambiguously—secretly— +mysteriously. Whatever is conducted openly is deemed to be done stupidly. +To take a house, buy a horse, or hire a servant without the intervention +of another man to disparage the article, chaffer over the price, and +disgust the vendor, is an act of impetuous folly. “Why didn’t you tell <i>me!</i>” + says your friend, “that you wished to have that villa? My coachman is +half-brother to the wife of the <i>fattore</i>. I could have learned +everything that could be urged against its convenience, and learned, +besides, what peculiar pressure for money affected the owner.” Besides +this, everything must be done as though by mere hazard: you really never +knew there was a house there, never noticed it; you even sneer at the +taste of the man who selected the spot, and wonder “what he meant by it.” + In nine cases out of ten the other party is not deceived by this +skirmishing; he fires a little blank-cartridge too, and so goes on the +engagement. All have great patience; life, at least in Italy, is quite +long enough for all this; no one is overburdened with business; the days +are usually wearisome, and the theatres are only open of an evening! +</p> +<p> +It is, besides, so pleasant and so interesting to the Italian to pit his +craft against another man’s, and back his own subtlety against his +neighbour’s. It is a sort of gambling of which he never wearies; for the +game is one that demands not merely tact, address, and cunning, but face, +voice, manner, and bearing. It is temperament. Individuality itself is on +the table; and so is it, that you may assume it as certain that the higher +organisation will invariably rise the winner. +</p> +<p> +Imagine Bull in such a combat, and you have a picture of the most hopeless +incapacity. He frets, fumes, storms, and sulks; but what avails it? he is +“done” in the end; but he is no more aware that the struggle he has been +engaged in is an intellectual one, than was the Bourgeois Gentilhomme +conscious that he had been for forty years “talking prose.” + </p> +<p> +The Priest was doubtless the great originator of all this mechanism of +secrecy and fraud. For centuries the Church has been the Tyrant of Italy. +The whole fate and fortunes of families depended on the will of a poor, +ill-clad, ignoble-looking creature, who, though he sat at meals with the +master, ate and talked like a menial. To this man was known everything—all +that passed beneath the roof. Not alone was he aware of the difficulties, +the debts, the embarrassments of the family, but to him were confided +their feelings, their shortcomings, their sorrows, and it might be their +shame. From him there was nothing secret; and he sat there, in the midst +of them, a sort of Fate, wielding the power of one who knew every spring +and motive that could stir them, every hope that could thrill, every +terror that could appal them. There was no escape from him—cold, +impassive spectator of good or evil fortune, without one affection to +attach him to life, grimly watching the play of passions which made men +his slaves, and only interested by the exercise of a power that degraded +them. The layman could not outwit him, it is true, but he could steal +something of the craft that he could not rival. This he has done; how he +has employed it any one can at least imagine who has had dealings in +Italy. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE DECLINE OF WHIST. +</h2> +<p> +What is the reason of the decline of Whist? Why is it that every year we +find fewer players, and less proficiency in those who play? It is a far +graver question than it may seem at first blush, and demands an amount of +investigation much deeper than I am able to give it here. +</p> +<p> +Of course I am prepared to hear that people nowadays are too accomplished +and too intellectual to be obliged to descend for their pastime to a mere +game at cards; that higher topics engage and higher interests occupy them; +that they read and reflect more than their fathers and grandfathers did; +and that they would look down with disdain upon an intellectual combat +where the gladiators might be the last surviving veterans of a bygone +century. +</p> +<p> +Now, if the conversational tone of our time were pre-eminently brilliant—if +people were wiser, wittier, more amusing, and more instructive than +formerly—if we lived in an age of really good talkers,—I might +assent to the force of this explanation; but what is the truth? Ours is, +of all the times recorded by history, the dullest and dreariest: rare as +whist-players are, pleasant people are still rarer. It is not merely that +the power of entertaining is gone, but so has the ambition. Nobody tries +to please, and the success is admirable! It is fashionable to be stupid, +and we are the most modish people in the universe. It is absurd, then, in +a society whose interchange of thought is expressed in monosyllables, and +a certain haw-haw dreariness pervades all intercourse, to say that people +are above Whist. Why, they are below Push-pin! +</p> +<p> +It would be sufficient to point to the age when Whist was most in vogue, +to show that it flavoured a society second to none in agreeability; and +who were the players? The most eminent divines, the greatest ministers, +the most profound jurists, the most subtle diplomatists. What an influence +a game so abounding in intellectual teaching must have exercised on the +society where it prevailed, can scarcely be computed. Blackstone has a +very remarkable passage on the great social effect produced upon the +Romans by their popular games; and he goes so far as to say that society +imbibes a vast amount of those conventionalities which form its laws, from +an Tin-conscious imitation of the rules which govern its pastimes. Take +our own time, and I ask with confidence, should we find such want of +purpose as our public men exhibit, such uncertainty, such feebleness, and +such defective allegiance to party, in a whist-playing age? Would men be +so ready as we see them to renounce their principles, if they bore fresh +in their mind all the obloquy that follows “a revoke”? Would they misquote +their statistics in face of the shame that attends on “a false score”? +Would they be so ready to assert what they know they must retract, if they +had a recent recollection of being called on “to take down the honours”? +</p> +<p> +Think, then, of the varied lessons—moral as well as mental—that +the game instils; the caution, the reserve, the patient attention, the +memory, the deep calculation of probabilities, embracing all the rules of +evidence, the calm self-reliance, and the vigorous daring that shows when +what seems even rashness may be the safest of all expedients. Imagine the +daily practice of these gifts and faculties, and tell me, if you can, that +he who exercises them can cease to employ them in his everyday life. You +might as well assert that the practice of gymnastics neither develops the +muscle nor increases strength. +</p> +<p> +I cannot believe a great public man to have attained a fall development of +his power if he has not been a whist-player; and for a leader of the +House, it is an absolute necessity. Take a glance for a moment at what +goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. +Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his +party that unhappy man is, who <i>will</i> ask a question to-day which +this day week would be unanswerable. What is that but “playing his card +out of time”? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the +unlucky “something” being the key-note to his party’s politics which he +has thus disclosed. What is this but “showing his hand”? Hear that dreary +blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has just +asserted—“trumping,” as it were, “his partner’s trick.” Or that +still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken “the +lead out of the hand” that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would +there be one—even one—of these solecisms committed in an age +when Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and +practice of the odd trick? +</p> +<p> +Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston “forces the hand” of the +Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon the card +Lord Russell has let drop, and “calls on him to play it.” And in the face +of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered creatures Leech +gives us in ‘Punch,’ who, if asked, “Can they play?” answer with a +contemptuous ha-ha laugh, “I rather think not.” + </p> +<p> +To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude +occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand’s +sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable +advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down in +that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and +brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era. By +what other agency—through what fortuitous combination of events +other than the game—could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How +could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual +intimacy? +</p> +<p> +It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this +situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do not +possess—any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest +inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical of +those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries of +this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in the +lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance. Not one +of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet he was a +good player: too venturous, perhaps—too dashing—but splendid +with “a strong hand!” During all the sittings of the Paris Congress he +played every night at the Jockey Club, and won very largely—some say +above twenty thousand pounds. +</p> +<p> +The late Prince Metternich played well, but not brilliantly. It was a +patient, cautious, back-game, and never fully developed till the last card +was played. He grew easily tired too, and very seldom could sit out more +than twelve or fourteen rubbers; unlike Talleyrand, who always arose from +table, after perhaps twelve hours’ play, fresher and brighter than when he +began. Lord Melbourne played well, but had moments of distraction, when he +suffered the smaller interests of politics to interfere with his +combinations. I single him out, however, as a graceful compliment to a +party who have numbered few good players in their ranks; for certainly the +Tories could quote folly ten to one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs +are too superficial, too crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be +whist-players; and, worse than all, too distrustful. A Whig could never +trust his partner—he could not for a moment disabuse himself of the +notion that his colleague meant to outwit him. A Whig, too, would +invariably try to win by something not perfectly legitimate; and, last of +all, he would be incessantly appealing to the bystanders, and asking if he +had not, even if egregiously beaten, played better than his opponents. +</p> +<p> +The late Cabinet of Lord Derby contained some good players. Two of the +Secretaries of State were actually fine players, and one of them adds +Whist to accomplishments which would have made their possessor an +Admirable Crichton, if genius had not elevated him into a far loftier +category than Crichtons belong to. Rechberg plays well, and likes his +game; but he is in Whist, as are all Germans, a thorough pedant. I +remember an incident of his whist-life sufficiently amusing in its way, +though, in relation, the reader loses what to myself is certainly the +whole pungency of the story: I mean the character and nature of the person +who imparted the anecdote to me, and who is about the most perfect +specimen of that self-possession, which we call coolness, the age we live +in can boast of. +</p> +<p> +I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in +many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the +requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which make +of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that walks +the earth. +</p> +<p> +I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. “I used to +play a good deal with Rechberg,” said he, “and took pleasure in worrying +him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with anything +that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each game was +followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense +mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and +offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian. +</p> +<p> +“One evening, after a number of these discussions, in which Rechberg had +displayed an even unusual warmth and irritability, I found myself opposed +to him in a game, the interest of which had drawn around us a large +assembly of spectators—what the French designate as <i>la galerie</i>. +Towards the conclusion of the game it was my turn to lead, and I played a +card which so astounded the Austrian Minister, that he laid down his cards +upon the table and stared fixedly at me. +</p> +<p> +“‘In all my experience of Whist,’ said he, deliberately, ‘I never saw the +equal of that.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Of what?’ asked! +</p> +<p> +“‘Of the card you have just played,’ rejoined he. ‘It is not merely that +such play violates every principle of the game, but it actually stultifies +all your own combinations.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘I think differently, Count,’ said I. ‘I maintain that it is good play, +and I abide by it.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Let us decide it by a wager,’ said he. +</p> +<p> +“‘In what way?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Thus: We shall leave the question to the <i>galerie</i>. You shall +allege what you deem to be the reasons for your play, and they shall +decide if they accept them as valid.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘I agree. What will you bet?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Ten napoleons—twenty, fifty, five hundred if you like!’ cried he, +warmly. +</p> +<p> +“‘I shall say ten. You don’t like losing, and I don’t want to punish you +too heavily.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘There is the jury, sir,’ said he, haughtily; ‘make your case.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘The wager is this,’ said I, ‘that, to win, I shall satisfy these +gentlemen that for the card I played I had a sufficient and good reason.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Yes.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘My reason was this, then—I looked into your hand!’ +</p> +<p> +“I pocketed his ten napoleons, but they were the last I won of him. +Indeed, it took a month before he got over the shock.” + </p> +<p> +It would be interesting if we had, which unhappily we have not, any +statistical returns to show what classes and professions have produced the +best whist-players. In my own experience I have found civilians the +superiors of the military. +</p> +<p> +Diplomatists I should rank first; their game was not alone finer and more +subtle, but they showed a recuperative power in their play which others +rarely possessed: they extricated themselves well out of difficulties, and +always made their losses as small as possible. Where they broke down was +when they were linked with a bad partner: they invariably played on a +level which he could never attain to, and in this way cross purposes and +misunderstandings were certain to ensue. +</p> +<p> +Lawyers, as a class, play well; but their great fault is, they play too +much for the <i>galerie</i>. The habit of appealing to the jury jags and +blurs the finer edge of their faculties, and they are more prone to +canvass the suffrages of the surrounders than to address themselves to the +actual issue. For this reason, Equity practitioners are superior to the +men in the courts below. +</p> +<p> +Physicians are seldom first-rate players—they are always behind +their age in Whist, and rarely, if ever, know any of the fine points which +Frenchmen have introduced into the game. Their play, too, is timid—they +regard trumps as powerful stimulants, and only administer them in +drop-doses. They seldom look at the game as a great whole, but play on, +card after card, deeming each trick they turn as a patient disposed of, +and not in any way connected with what has preceded or is to follow it. +</p> +<p> +Divines are in Whist pretty much where geology was in the time of the +first Georges; still I have met with a bishop and a stray archdeacon or +two who could hold their own. I am speaking here of the Establishment, +because in Catholic countries the higher clergy are very often good +players. Antonelli, for instance, might sit down at the Portland or the +Turf; and even my old friend G. P. would find that his Eminence was his +match. +</p> +<p> +Soldiers are sorry performers, for mess-play is invariably bad; but +sailors are infinitely worse. They have but one notion, which is to play +out all the best cards as fast as they can, and then appeal to their +partner to score as many tricks as they have—an inhuman performance, +which I have no doubt has cost many apoplexies. +</p> +<p> +On the whole, Frenchmen are better players than we are. Their game is less +easily divined, and all their intimations (<i>invites</i>) more subtle and +more refined. The Emperor plays well. In England he played a great deal at +the late Lord Eglinton’s, though he was never the equal of that +accomplished Earl, whose mastery of all games, especially those of +address, was perfection. +</p> +<p> +The Irish have a few brilliant players—one of them is on the bench; +but the Scotch are the most winning of all British whisters. The Americans +are rarely first-rate, but they have a large number of good second-class +players. Even with them, however, Whist is on the decline; and Euchre and +Poker, and a score more of other similar abominations, have usurped the +place of the king of games. What is to be done to arrest the progress of +this indifferentism?—how are we to awaken men out of the stupor of +this apathy? Have they never heard of the terrible warning of Talleyrand +to his friend who could not play, as he said, “Have you reflected on the +miserable old age that awaits you?” How much of human nature that would +otherwise be unprofitable can be made available by Whist! What scores of +tiresome old twaddlers are there who can still serve their country as +whisters! what feeble intelligences that can flicker out into a passing +brightness at the sight of the “turned trump”! +</p> +<p> +Think of this, and think what is to become of us when the old, the feeble, +the tiresome, and the interminable will all be thrown broadcast over +society without an object or an occupation. Imagine what Bores will be let +loose upon the world, and fancy how feeble will be all efforts of wit or +pleasantry to season a mass of such incapables! Think, I say, think of +this. It is a peril that has been long threatening—even from that +time when old Lord Hertford, baffled and discouraged by the invariable +reply, “I regret, my Lord, that I cannot play Whist,” exclaimed, “I really +believe that the day is not distant when no gentleman can have a vice that +requires more than two people!” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ONE OF OUR “TWO PUZZLES”. +</h2> +<p> +The two puzzles of our era are, how to employ our women, and what to do +with our convicts; and how little soever gallant it may seem to place them +in collocation, there is a bond that unites the attempt to keep the good +in virtue with the desire to reform the bad from vice, which will save me +from any imputation of deficient delicacy. +</p> +<p> +Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has been +expended in devising occupations where female labour might be +advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more +delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men. +Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph, +have been freely opened—and, I believe, very successfully—to +female skill; and scores of other callings have been also placed at their +disposal: but, strange enough, the more that we do, the more there remains +to be done; and never have the professed advocates of woman’s rights been +so loud in their demands as since we have shared with them many of what we +used to regard as the especial fields of man’s industry. Women have taken +to the practice of Medicine, and have threatened to invade the Bar—steps +doubtless anticipatory of the time when they shall “rise in the House” or +sit on the Treasury benches. Now, I have very little doubt that we used +not to be as liberal as we might in sharing our callings with women. We +had got into the habit of underrating their capacities, and disparaging +their fitness for labour, which was very illiberal; but let us take care +that the reaction does not cany us too far on the other side, and that in +our zeal to make a reparation we only make a blunder, and that we +encourage them to adopt careers and crafts totally unsuited to their +tastes and their powers. +</p> +<p> +It is quite clear—in fact, a mere glance at the detail of the +preliminary studies will suffice to show it—that medicine and +surgery should not be shared with them. For a variety of reasons, they +ought not to be encouraged to take holy orders; and, on the whole, it is +very doubtful if it would be a wise step to introduce them into the army, +much less into the navy. Seeing this, therefore, the question naturally +arises, Are women to be the mere drudges—the Helots of our +civilisation? Are we only to employ them in such humble callings as +exclude all ideas of future distinction? A very serious question this, and +one over which I pondered for more than half an hour last night, as I lay +under the influence of some very strong tea and a slight menace of gout. +</p> +<p> +Women are very haughty creatures—very resentful of any supposed +slight—very aggressive, besides, if they imagine the time for attack +favourable. Will they sit down patiently as makers of pill-boxes and +artificial flowers? Will they be satisfied with their small gains and +smaller consideration? Will there not be ambitious spirits amongst them +who will ask, What do you mean to offer us? We are of a class who neither +care to bind books nor draw patterns. We are your equals—if we were +not distinctively modest, we might say something more than your equals—in +acquirement and information. We have our smattering of physical-science +humbug, as you have; we are read up in theological disputation, and are as +ready as you to stand by Colenso against Moses; in modern languages we are +more than your match. What have you to offer us if we are too proud, or +too poor, or too anything else, to stand waiting for a buyer in the +marriage-market of Belgravia? You will not suffer us to enter the learned +professions nor the Service; you will not encourage us to be architects, +attorneys, land-agents, or engineers. We know and we feel that there is +not one of these callings either above our capacity or unsuited to our +habits, but you deny us admittance; and now we ask, What is your scheme +for our employment? what project have you that may point out to us a +future of independence and a station of respect? Have you such a plan? or, +failing it, have you the courage to proclaim to the world that all your +boasted civilisation can offer us is to become the governesses to the +children of our luckier sisters? But there are many of us totally unsuited +to this, brought up with ways and habits that would make such an existence +something very like penal servitude—what will you do with us? +</p> +<p> +With this cry—for it became a cry—in my ears, I tried to go +asleep. I counted seventeen hundred and forty-four; I thought of the sea; +I imagined I was listening to Dr Cumming; and I endeavoured to repeat a +distich of Martin Tupper: but the force of conscience and the congo +carried the day, and I addressed myself vigorously to the question. I +thought of making them missionaries, lighthouse-keepers, lunacy +commissioners, Garter Kings-at-Arms, and suchlike, when a brilliant +thought flashed across my brain, and, with the instinct of a great +success, I saw I had triumphed. “Yes,” cried I aloud, “there is one grand +career for women—a career which shall engage not alone all the +higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call +forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their tact, +their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually employ the +less commendable features of female nature, and find work for their powers +of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion for intrigue. +How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for of all the careers +meant by nature for women, was there any one could compare with +Diplomacy!” + </p> +<p> +Here we have at once the long-sought-for career—the <i>desideratum +tanti studii</i>—the occupation for which men are too coarse, too +clumsy, too inept, and which requires the lighter touch and more delicate +treatment of female fingers. It is the everyday reproach heard of us +abroad, that our representatives are deficient in those smaller and nicer +traits by which irritations are avoided and unpleasant situations +relieved. John, they say, always imagines that to be national he must be +“Bull,” and toss on his horns “all and every” that opposes him. Now, late +events might have disabused foreign cabinets on this score: a quieter +beast than he has shown himself need not be wished for. Still, he has +bellowed, and lashed his tail, and cut a few absurd capers, to show what +he would be at if provoked; but the world has grown too wise to be +terrified by such exhibitions, and quietly settled down to the opinion +that there is nothing to fear from him. Now, how very differently might +all this have been if the Duchess of S. were Ambassador at Paris, and the +Countess of C. at St Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would have +been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying—none of that blundering +about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress “ought to follow a +war,” and proposing one to-morrow, “to prevent a war.” Women despise +logic, and consequently would not stultify it. A temperance apostle is not +likely to adulterate the liquor that he does not drink; and for this +reason, female intelligence would have escaped this “muddle.” Her Ladyship +would have thrown her blandishments over Rechberg—he is now of the +age when men are easy victims—all the little cajoleries and +flatteries of women’s art would have been exerted first to find out, and +then to thwart, his policy. It is notorious that English diplomacy knows +next to nothing through secret agency. Would such be the case if we had +women as envoys? What mystery would stand the assault of a fine lady, +trained and practised by the habits of her daily life? +</p> +<p> +They tell us that our fox-hunters would form the finest scout-cavalry in +Europe; and I am convinced that a London leader of fashion—I have a +dozen in my eye at this moment—would track an intrigue through all +its stages, and learn its intimate details of place and time and agency, +weeks before a merely male intelligence began to suspect the thing was +possible. +</p> +<p> +Imagine what a blue-book would be in these times—would there be any +reading could compare with it? We used to admire a certain diplomatist—a +pleasant narrator of court gossip—giving, as he did, little traits +of Kings and Kaisers, and telling us the way in which majesty was +graciously pleased to blow his royal nose. Imagine a female pen engaged on +such themes! What clever and sharp little touches would reveal the whole +tone of a “reception”! We should not be told “His Majesty received me +coldly,” but we would have a beautiful analysis of the royal mind in all +its varied moods of displeasure, concealment, urbanity, reserve, and +deception. Compared with the male version of the same incident, it would +be like Faraday’s report on a case of supposed poisoning beside the +blundering narrative of a country apothecary! +</p> +<p> +It is a long time—a very long time—before an old country has +energy enough to throw off any of its accustomed ways. It requires the +vigorous assault of young and sturdy intelligences, and, above all, +immense persistence, to effect it. +</p> +<p> +Light comes very slowly indeed through the fog of centuries’ growth, and +there is hope always when even the faintest flicker of a ray pierces the +Boeotian cloud. Now, for some years back, it may have been remarked that a +sort of suspicion has been breaking on the minds of our rulers, that the +finer, the higher, and subtler organisations of women might find their +suitable sphere of occupation in the diplomatic service. +</p> +<p> +“I don’t speak German, but I play the German flute,” said the apologetic +gentleman; and so might we say. We don’t engage ladies in diplomacy, but +we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a +well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine clothes +and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, and heart and soul devoted to +royalties, we promote him. If he speak French tolerably, we make him a +Minister; if he be fluent, an Envoy Extraordinary. +</p> +<p> +I remember an old medical lecturer in Dublin formerly, who used to hold +forth on the Materia Medica in the hall of the University, and who, seeing +a “student” whose studies had been for some time before pursued in +Germany, appear in the lecture-room, with a note-book and pen to take down +the lecture— +</p> +<p> +“Tell that young gentleman,” said the Professor, “to put up his writing +materials, for there’s not one word he’ll hear from me that he’ll not find +in the oldest editions of the ‘Dublin Pharmacopoeia.’” In the same spirit +our diplomatists may sneer at the call for blue-books. We have all of us +had the whole thing already in the ‘Times;’ and why? Because we choose to +employ unsuitable tools. We want to shave with a hatchet instead of a +razor; for be it remarked, as no things are so essentially unlike as those +that have a certain resemblance, there is nothing in nature so remote from +the truly feminine finesse as the mind of a male “old woman.” + </p> +<p> +It is simply to the flaws and failures of female intelligence that the +parallel applies. A very pleasant old parson, whom I knew when I was a +boy, and who used to discourse to me much about Edmund Burke and Gavin +Hamilton, told me once that he met old Primate Stewart one day returning +from a visitation, and turned his horse round to accompany the carriage +for some distance. “Doctor G.,” said the Archbishop, “you remind me most +strikingly of my friend Paley.” + </p> +<p> +“Oh, my Lord, it is too much honour: I have not the shadow of a pretension +to such distinction.” + </p> +<p> +“Well, sir, it is true; I have Paley before me as I look at you.” + </p> +<p> +“I am overwhelmed by your Lordship’s flattery.” + </p> +<p> +“Yes, sir; Paley rode just such another broken-down old grey nag as that.” + </p> +<p> +Do not therefore disparage my plan for the employment of women in +diplomacy by any ungenerous comparisons with the elderly ladies at present +engaged in it. This would be as unfair as it is ungallant. +</p> +<p> +There are a variety of minor considerations which I might press into the +cause, but some of them would appeal less to the general mind than to the +official, and I omit them—merely observing what facilities it would +give for the despatch of business, if the Minister, besieged, as he often +now is, by lady-applicants for a husband’s promotion, instead of the +tedious inquiry, “Who is Mr D.?—where has he been?—what has he +done?—what is he capable of?” could simply say, “Make Mrs T. Third +Secretary at Stuttgart, and send Mrs O’Dowd as Vice-Consul to Simoom!” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. +</h2> +<p> +It is no small privilege to you “gentlemen of England who live at home at +ease,” or otherwise, that you cannot hear how the whole Continent is +talking of you at this moment. We have, as a nation, no small share of +self-sufficiency and self-esteem. If we do not thank God for it, we are +right well pleased to know that we are not like that Publican there, “who +eats garlic, or carries a stiletto, or knouts his servants, or indulges in +any other taste or pastime of ‘the confounded foreigner.’” The ‘Times’ +proclaims how infinitely superior we are every morning; and each traveller—John +Murray in hand—expounds in his bad French, that an Englishman is the +only European native brought up in the knowledge of truth and the +wash-tub. +</p> +<p> +By dint of time, iteration, and a considerable amount of that same French +I speak of, an article expressly manufactured for exportation, we really +did at last persuade patient and suffering Europe to take us at our own +valuation. We got them to believe that—with certain little +peculiarities, certain lesser vices, rather amiable than otherwise—no +nation, ancient or modern, could approach us. That we were at one and the +same time the richest, the strongest, the most honourable, the most +courageous people recorded in history; and not alone this, but the +politest and the most conciliatory, with the largest coal-fields and the +best cookery in Europe. Now, there is nothing more damaging than the +witness who proves too much. Miss Edgeworth tells us somewhere, I think, +of an Irish peer who, travelling in France with a negro servant, directed +him, if questioned on the subject, always to say his master was a +Frenchman. He was punctiliously faithful to his orders; but whenever he +said, “My massa a Frenchman,” he always added, “So am I.” + </p> +<p> +In the same spirit has Bull gone and damaged himself abroad. He might have +enjoyed an unlimited credit for his stories of English wealth and +greatness—how big was our fleet, and how bitter our beer; he might +have rung the changes over our just pride in our insular position and our +income-tax, and none dared to dispute him; but when, in the warm +expansiveness of his enthusiasm, he proceeded to say, not merely that we +dressed better and dined better than the foreigner, but that our manners +were more polished, our address more insinuating, and the amiability of +our whole social tone more conspicuous, “Mossoo,” taking him to represent +all from Stockholm to Sicily, began to examine for himself, and after some +hesitation to ask, “What if the wealth be only like the politeness? What +if the national character be about as rude as the cookery? What if English +morality turn out to be a jumble and confusion, very like English-French? +Who is to tell us that the coal-fields may not be as easily exhausted as +the civility?” These were very ugly doubts, and for some years back +foreigners, after that slow fashion in which public opinion moves amongst +them, have been turning them over and over, but in a manner that showed a +great revulsion had taken place on the Continent with regard to the +estimate of England. +</p> +<p> +A nation usually judges another nation by the individuals and by the +Government. Now it is no calumny to say that, taking them <i>en masse</i>, +the English who travel abroad, whether it be from indifference, from +indolence, from a rooted confidence in their own superiority, or from some +defect in character, neither win favour for themselves, nor affection for +their country from foreigners. So long as we were looked upon, however, as +colossal in wealth and power, a certain rude and abrupt demeanour was +taken as the type of a people too practical to be polished. It grew to be +thought that intense activity and untiring energy had no time to bestow on +mere forms. When, however, a suspicion began to get abroad—it was a +cloud no bigger at first than a man’s hand—that if we had the money +it was to hoard it, and if we had the power it was to withhold its +exercise; that we wanted, in fact, to impose on the world by the menace of +a force we never meant to employ, and to rule Europe as great financiers +“bear” the Stock Exchange—then, and then for the first time, there +arose that cry against England as a sham and an imposition, of which, as I +said before, it is very pleasant for you at home if the sounds have not +reached you. +</p> +<p> +All our late policy has led to this. Ever ready to join with France, we +always leave her in the lurch. We went with her to Mexico, and left her +when she landed. We did our utmost to launch her into a war for Poland, in +which we had never the slightest intention of joining. Always prompt for +the initiative, we stop short immediately after. I have a friend who says, +“I am very fond of going to church, but I don’t like going in.” This is +exactly the case of England. She won’t go in. +</p> +<p> +Now, I am fully persuaded it would have been a mistake to have joined in +the Mexican campaign. I cannot imagine such a congeries of blunders as a +war for the Poles. But why entertain these questions? Why discuss them in +cabinets, and debate them in councils? Why convey the false impression +that you are indignant when you are indifferent, or feel sympathy for +sufferings of which you will do nothing but talk? +</p> +<p> +“Masterly inactivity” was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has +led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate +politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were +dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first of +all essential you should show that you could do something very great if +you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb having +observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, the prestige for +this high quality, it was necessary that she should seem to bestir +herself. The British lion must have got up, rolled his eyes fearfully, and +even lashed his tail, before he resolved on the masterly inactivity of +lying down again. +</p> +<p> +In Knickerbocker’s ‘History of New York’ we have a very graphic +description of the ship in which the first Dutch explorers sailed for the +shores of North America. “The vessel was called the <i>Goede Vrouw</i> +(Good Woman), a compliment to the wife of the President of the West India +Company, who was allowed by every one, except her husband, to be a +sweet-tempered lady—when not in liquor. It was, in truth, a gallant +vessel of the most approved Dutch construction—made by the ablest +ship-carpenters of Amsterdam, who, as is well known, always model their +ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had one +hundred feet in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one hundred +feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrel. Like the beauteous +model, who was declared to be the greatest belle of Amsterdam, it was full +in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a copper-bottom, and +withal a prodigious poop.” + </p> +<p> +It is, however, with her sailing qualities we are more interested than +with her build. “Thus she made as much lee-way as head-way—could get +along nearly as fast with the wind ahead as at poop, and was particularly +great in a calm.” Would not one say, in reading this description, that the +humorist was giving prophetically a picture of the England of the present +day, making as much lee-way as head-way, none the better, wherever the +winds came from, and only great in a calm? The very last touch he gives is +exquisite. “Thus gallantly furnished, she floated out of harbour sideways, +like a majestic goose.” Can anything be more perfect; can anything more +neatly typify the course the vessel of the State is taking, “floating out +sideways, like a majestic goose!” amidst the jeers and mockeries of +beholding Europe. +</p> +<p> +Our whole policy consists in putting forward some hypothetical case, in +which, if certain other states were to do something which would cause +another country to do something else, then England would be found in that +case—— God forgive me! +</p> +<p> +I was going to quote some of that balderdash which reminds one of ‘The +Rivals,’ where Acres says, “If you had called me a poltroon, Sir Lucas!” + </p> +<p> +“Well, sir, and if I had?” + </p> +<p> +“In that case I should have thought you a very ill-bred man.” + </p> +<p> +See what it is to have a literary Foreign Secretary; see how he goes back +to our great writers, not alone for his style, but his statesmanship. We +have been insulted, mocked, and sneered at; our national honour derided, +our national strength defied; but we are told it is all right: our policy +is a “masterly inactivity,” and the Funds are at ninety-one and +one-eighth! +</p> +<p> +The ‘Times.’ too, is of the same cheery and encouraging spirit, and +philosophically looks on the misfortunes of our friends pretty much as +friends’ misfortunes are usually regarded in life—occasions for a +tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them—the writer +speaks of the Allied armies—let them go on in the career of rapine +and cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time +will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be +retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on the +soil of the Fatherland. +</p> +<p> +“They are going to hang Larry,” cried the wife of a condemned felon to the +lawyer, who had hurried into court, having totally forgotten he had ever +engaged to defend the prisoner. +</p> +<p> +“Let them hang him, and I’ll make it the dearest hanging ever they +hanged.” + </p> +<p> +These may be words of comfort in Downing Street. I wonder what the Danes +think of them? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A NEW HANSARD. +</h2> +<p> +There is an annual publication called the ‘Wreck Register,’ which probably +few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to record all +the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, accompanying the +narrative by such remarks or observations as may contribute to explain +each catastrophe, or offer likelihood of prevention in future. It is, +though thoroughly divested of any sensational character, one of the +dreariest volumes one can take up. Disaster follows disaster so fast, that +at length the reader begins to imagine that shipwreck is the all but +invariable event of a voyage, and that they who cross the ocean in safety +are the lucky mortals of humanity. +</p> +<p> +Fortunately, however, long as the catalogue of misfortune is, this is not +the case, and we have the satisfaction of learning that the percentage of +loss is decreasing with every year. The higher knowledge and attainments +of merchant captains, and the increase of refuge harbours, are the chief +sources of this security. The old ignorance, in which a degree or two of +latitude more or less was a light error in a ship’s reckoning, is now +unheard of, and they who command merchant-ships in our day are a very well +informed and superior order of men. With reference to the conduct and +capacity of these captains, this ‘Wreck Register,’ is a very instructive +publication. If, for instance, you find that Captain Brace, who was +wrecked on the Azores in ‘52, was again waterlogged at sea in ‘61, and ran +into an iceberg off Newfoundland in ‘62, you begin, mayhap unfairly, to +couple him too closely with disaster, and you turn to the inquest over his +calamities to see what estimate was formed of his conduct. You learn, +possibly, that in one case he was admonished to more caution; in another, +honourably acquitted; and in the last instance smartly reprimanded, and +his certificate suspended for six months or a year. Now, though you have +never heard of Captain Brace in your life, nor are probably likely to +encounter him on sea or land, you cannot avoid a certain sense of relief +at the thought that so unlucky a commander, to say the least of it, is not +likely for a while to imperil more lives, and that the warning impressed +by his fate will also be a salutary lesson to many others. +</p> +<p> +It was in reflecting over this system of inquiry and sentence, that it +occurred to me what to admirable thing it would be to introduce the ‘Wreck +Register’ into politics, and to have a yearly record of all parliamentary +shipwrecks; all the bills that foundered, the motions that were stranded, +the amendments lost in a fog!—to be able to look back and reflect +over the causes of these disasters, investigating patiently how and why +and where they happened, and asking ourselves, Have we any better security +for the future? are we better acquainted with the currents, the soundings, +or the headlands? and, above all, what amount of blame, if any, is +attributable to the commander? +</p> +<p> +If we find, for instance, that the barque Young Reform, no matter how +carefully fitted out for sea—new sheathed and coppered, with +bran-new canvass, and a very likely crew on board—never leaves the +port that she does not come back crippled; and that old and experienced +captains, however confidently they may take the command at first, frankly +own that they’ll never put foot in her again, you very naturally begin to +suspect that there’s something wrong in her build. She is either too +unwieldy, like the Great Eastern, or she is too long to turn well, or she +requires such incessant repair; or, most fatal of all, she is entered for +a trade where nobody wants her; and therefore you resolve that, come what +will, you’ll avoid her. +</p> +<p> +What an inestimable benefit to the student of politics would a few such +brief notices be, instead of sending him, as we send him now, to the +dreary pages of Hansard! Imagine what a neat system of mnemonics would +grow out of the plan, when, instead of poring over interminable columns of +tiresome repetition, you had the whole narrative in few words—thus: +“Barque Reform, John Russell, commander, lost A.D. 1854 The Commissioners +seeing that this vessel was built for the most part of old materials, +totally unseaworthy, are of opinion that she ought not to have sailed at +all; and severely censure the commander, J. R, for foolhardiness and +obstinacy, he having, as it has been proved, acted in entire opposition to +‘his owners.’ On the pressing recommendation, however, of the owners, and +at the representation that E. has been long in the service, and is, +although too self-confident, a very respectable man, his certificate has +been restored to him.” + </p> +<p> +Lower down comes the entry:— +</p> +<p> +“The Young Reform.—This was a full-rigged ship, in great part +constructed on the lines of the barque lost in 1854. She sailed on the +28th February 1859, commanded by Captain Dizzy. No insurance could be +effected upon her on any terms, as the crew were chiefly apprentices, and +a very mutinous spirit aboard. She put back, completely crippled, after +three days’ stormy weather; and though the commander averred that some +enemies of his owners had laid down false buoys in the channel, he was not +listened to by the Commissioners, who withheld his certificate. Has never +been employed since, and his case by many considered a very hard one.” + </p> +<p> +Of course, all the small class of coasting vessels—railroad bills +and suchlike—suffer great losses. They are usually ill-found and +badly manned; but now and then we come upon curious escapes, where a +measure slips through unobserved, like a blockade-runner; and it is ten to +one in such cases they have that crafty old pilot Pam on board, who has +been more than fifty years at sea, and is as wide awake now as on his +first day. +</p> +<p> +What analogies press in on every hand! Look at the way each party bids for +and buys up the old materials of the other, fancying they have some +“lines” of their own that will turn out a clipper to beat everything. And +think of those “Sailors’ Homes,” where old salts chew their quids at ease—those +snug permanent Under-Secretaryships, those pleasant asylums in the +Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in Downing Street, +where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not at once before +you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the “ordinary seaman” higgling +for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging that his grog may not be +watered? And, last of all, see the old lighthouse-keepers, the veteran +First Clerks who serve every Administration, and keep their lamps bright +for all parties—a fine set of fellows in their way, though some +people will tell you that they have their favourites too, and are not so +brisk about the fog-signals if they don’t like the skipper. +</p> +<p> +I think I have done enough to show that such a work as I speak of would +redound to public benefit; and I only ask, if my suggestion be approved +of, that I may be remembered as the inventor, and not treated as Admiralty +Lords do the constructors of new targets, testing the metal and torturing +the man. Bear in mind, therefore, if the political ‘Wreck Register’ be +ever carried into execution, its device must be “O’Dowdius fecit.” + </p> +<p> +It might not be amiss, in the spirit that has suggested this improvement, +to organise in connection with the proceedings of the House a code of +signals on the plan of Admiral Fitzroy’s storm-signals, and which, from +the great tower, or some similar eminence, might acquaint members what +necessity for their presence existed. Fancy, for instance, the relief an +honourable gentleman would experience on seeing the fine-weather flag up, +and knowing thereby that something of no moment was being discussed—a +local railroad, a bill to enable some one to marry his grandmother, or a +measure for Ireland! Imagine the fog-signal flying, and see how +instantaneously it would he apprehended that D. G. was asking the noble +Lord at the head of the Government a question so intensely absurd as to +show a state of obscurity in his own faculties, in comparison to which fog +is a thin atmosphere! Or mark what excitement would be felt as the +storm-drum was hoisted, telling how the Government craft was being +buffeted and knocked about, and the lifeboat of the Opposition manned to +take charge of the ship if abandoned! What a mercy to those poor, +hard-worked, harassed, and wearied “whips”! what a saving there would be +in club-frequenting and in cab-hire! Now would the lounger, as he strolled +along Pall-Mall, say, “No need to hurry.” “light airs of wind from the +east” means a member for Galway and some balderdash about the Greeks. +“Thick weather in the Channel” implies troubles in Ireland—nothing +very new or interesting. “Dirty weather to the east’ard” would show +mischief in the Danubian provinces, and a general sense of unquiet in the +regions of the Sultan Redcliffe. These are hints which I have not +patented, and the chances are that “My Lords” will speedily adopt them, +and call them their own. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +FOREIGN CLUBS. +</h2> +<p> +How is it, will any one tell me, that all foreign Clubs are so ineffably +stupid? I do not suspect that we English are pre-eminent for social gifts; +and yet we are the only nation that furnishes clubable men. Frenchmen are +wittier, Germans profounder, Russians—externally at least—more +courteous and accommodating; and yet their Clubs are mere <i>tripots</i>—gambling +establishments; and, except play, no other feature of Club-life is to be +found in them. +</p> +<p> +To give a Club its peculiar “cachet”—its, so to say, trade-mark—you +require a class of men who make the Club their home, and whose interest it +is that all the internal arrangements should be as perfect, as well +ordered, and frictionless as may be. Good furniture, good servants, good +lighting, good cookery, well-adjusted temperature, and a well-chosen +cellar, are all essentials. In a word, the Club is to be the realisation +of what we all think so much of—comfort. Now, how very few +foreigners either understand or care for this! Every one who has travelled +abroad has seen the “Cercle,” or “L’Union,” or whatever its name be, where +men of the highest station—ministers, ambassadors, generals, and +suchlike—met to smoke and play whist, with a sanded floor, a dirty +attendance, and yet no one ever complained. They drank detestable beer, +and inhaled a pestilent atmosphere, and sat in draughts, without a thought +that there was anything to be remedied, or that human skill could or need +contrive anything better for their accommodation. +</p> +<p> +When these establishments were succeeded by the modern Club, with its +carpeted floor, silk hangings, ormolu lamps, and velvet couches, the +change was made in a pure spirit of Anglomanie; somebody had been over to +London, and come back full of the splendours of Pall-Mall. The work of +imitation, so far as decoration went, was not difficult. Indeed, in some +respects, in this they went beyond us, but there ended the success. The +Club abroad is a room where men gamble and talk of gambling, but no more; +it is not a Club. +</p> +<p> +For the working of the Club, as for that of constitutional government, a +special class are required. It, is the great masses of the middle ranks in +England, varied enough in fortune, education, habits, and tastes, but +still one in some great condition of a status, that supply the materials +for the work of a parliamentary government; and it is through the supply +of a large community of similar people that Clubs are maintained in their +excellence with us. +</p> +<p> +For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable of +all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club, not alone +to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to interchange +thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club imparts; to hear the +gossip of the day told in the spirit of men of their own leanings; to +ascertain what judgments are passed on public events and public characters +by the people they like to agree with;—in fact, to give a sort of +familiar domestic tone to intercourse, suggesting the notion that the Club +is a species of sanctuary where men can talk at their ease. The men who +furnish this category with us are neither young nor old, they are the +middle-aged, retaining some of the spring and elasticity of youth, but far +more inclining to the solidity of riper years. If they frequent the Opera, +it is to a stall, not to the <i>coulisses</i>, they go. They are more +critical than they used to be about their dinners, and they have a +tendency to mix seltzer with their champagne. They have reached that +bourne in which egotism has become an institution; and by the transference +of its working to the Club, they accomplish that marvellous creation by +which each man sees himself and his ways and his wants and his instincts +reflected in a thousand varied shapes. +</p> +<p> +Now, there are two things no nation of the Continent possesses—Spring, +and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell—some +have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for sixty +years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral territory—no +<i>mezzo termine</i>. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must serve as a +Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the absence of all serious interest in +life, which mark the leisure classes abroad, follow men sometimes even to +extreme old age. The successive changes of temperament and taste which we +mark at home have no correlatives abroad. The foreigner inhabits at sixty +the same sort of world he did at six-and-twenty: he does not dance so +much, but he lingers in the ballroom, and he is just as keenly alive to +all the little naughty talk that amused him forty years ago, and folly as +much interested to hear that the world is just as false and as wicked as +it used to be when he was better able to contribute to its frailty and +wickedness. +</p> +<p> +Not one of these men, with their padded pectorals and dyed whiskers, will +admit that they are of an age to require comfort. They are ardent youths +all of them, turning night into day as of old, and no more sensible of +fatigue from late hours, hot rooms, and dissipation, than they were a +quarter of a century back. +</p> +<p> +Can you fancy anything less clubable than a set of men like this? You +might as well set before me the stale bon-bons and sugar-plums of a +dessert for a dinner, as ask me to take such people for associates and +companions. The tone of everlasting trifling disgraces even idleness; and +these men contrive in their lives to reverse the laws of physics, since it +is by their very levity that they fall. +</p> +<p> +The humoristic temperament is the soul of Club-life. It is the keen +appreciation of others in all their varied moods and shades of feeling +that imparts the highest enjoyment to that strange democracy, the Club; +and foreigners are immensely deficient in this element. They are +infinitely readier, smarter, and wittier than Englishmen. They will hit in +an epigram what we would take an hour to embrace in an argument; but for +the racy pleasure of seeing how such a man will listen to this, what such +another will say to that, how far individuality, in fact, will mould and +fashion the news of the day, and assimilate its mental food to its own +digestive powers, there is nothing like the Englishman—and +especially the Englishman of the Club. +</p> +<p> +There is nothing like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten to +Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in the +nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and obligingness, +that we find the purest element of Club-life. +</p> +<p> +The Parisian are the best—far and away the best—of all foreign +Clubs; best in their style of “get-up,” decoration, and arrangement, and +best also in tone and social manner. The St Petersburg Club is the most +gorgeous, the habits the most costly, the play the highest. It is not very +long since that a young Russian noble lost in one evening a sum equal to a +hundred thousand pounds. The Vienna Club is good in its own stiff German +way; but, generally speaking, German Clubs are very ill arranged, dirty, +and comfortless. The Italian are better. Turin, Naples, and Florence have +reasonably good Clubs. Home has nothing but the thing called the English +Club, a poorly-got-up establishment of small whist-players and low +“points.” + </p> +<p> +It is a very common remark, that costume has a great influence over +people’s conduct, and that the man in his shooting-jacket will +occasionally give way to impulsive outbursts that he had never thought of +yielding to in his white-cravat moments. Whether this be strictly true or +not, there is little doubt that the style and character of the room a man +sits in insensibly affects his manner and his bearing, and that the habits +which would not be deemed strange in the low-ceilinged chamber, with the +sanded floor and the “mutton lights,” would be totally indecorous in the +richly-carpeted room, a blaze of wax-light, and glittering with +decoration. Now this alternating between Club and <i>Café</i> spoils men +utterly. It engenders the worst possible style—a double manner. The +over-stiffness here and the over-ease there are alike faulty. +</p> +<p> +The great, the fatal defect of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of some +one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of presumed +superiority and affectation of “knowing the whole thing,” browbeat and +ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want of that +wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is possible. Of +public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any shape; and yet +it is by the unwritten judgments of such a tribunal that society is guided +in England, and the same law that discourages the bully supports and +encourages the timid, without either the one or the other having the +slightest power to corrupt the court, or coerce its decrees. Club-life is, +in a way, the normal school for parliamentary demeanour; and until +foreigners understand the Club, they will never comprehend the etiquette +of the “Chamber.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. +</h2> +<p> +I have frequently heard medical men declare that no test of a candidate’s +fitness to be admitted as a physician was equal to a brief examination at +the bedside of a sick man. To be able to say, “There is a patient; tell us +his malady, and what you will do for it,” was infinitely better than long +hours spent in exploring questions of minute anatomy and theoretical +physic. In fact, for all practical purposes, it was more than likely he +would be the best who would make the least brilliant figure in an +examination; and the man whose studies had familiarised him with +everything from Galen to John Hunter, would cut just as sorry a figure if +called on to treat a case of actual malady. +</p> +<p> +It cannot possibly be otherwise. All that mere examination can effect, is +to investigate whether an individual has duly prepared himself for the +discharge of certain functions; but it never can presume to ascertain +whether the person is one fitted by nature, by habit, by taste, or +inclination, for the duties before him. Why, the student who may answer +the most abstruse questions in anatomy, may himself have nerves so weak as +to faint at the sight of blood. The physician who has Paracelsus by heart, +may be so deficient in that tact of eye, or ear, or touch, as to render +his learning good for nothing. Half an hour in an hospital would, however, +test these qualities. You would at once see whether the candidate was a +mere mass of book-learning, or whether he was one skilled in the aspect of +disease, trained to observe and note all the indications of malady, and +able even instantaneously to pronounce upon the gravity of a case before +him. This is exactly what you want. No examination of a man’s biceps and +deltoid, the breadth of his chest or the strength of his legs, would tell +you whether he was a good swimmer—five minutes in deep water would, +however, decide the matter. +</p> +<p> +Now, I shall not multiply arguments to prove my position. I desire to be +practical in these “O’Dowdiana,” and I strive not to be prosy. What I +would like, then, is to introduce this system of—let us call it—Test-examination, +into the Civil Service. +</p> +<p> +I have the highest respect for the pedagogues of Burlington House. I think +highly of Ollendorff and I believe Colenso’s Arithmetic a great +institution. I venerate the men who invent the impossible questions; but I +own I have the humblest opinion of those who answer them. I’d as soon take +a circus-horse, trained to fire a pistol and sit down like a dog, to carry +me across a stiff country, as I’d select one of these fellows for an +employ which required energy, activity, or ready-wittedness. There is no +such inefficiency as self-sufficiency; and this is the very quality +instilled by the whole system. Ask the veterans of the Admiralty, the War +Office, the Board of Trade, and the Customs, and you will get but the same +report, that for thorough incompetency and inordinate conceit there is +nothing like the prize candidate of a Civil Service examination. Take my +word for it, you could not find a worse pointer than the poodle which +would pick you out all the letters of the alphabet. +</p> +<p> +What I should therefore suggest is, to introduce into the Civil Service +something analogous to this clinical examination; something that might +test the practical fitness of the candidate, and show, not whether the man +has been well prepared by a “grinder,” but whether he be a heaven-born +tide-waiter, one of Nature’s own gaugers or vice-consuls. +</p> +<p> +I know it is not easy to do this in all cases. There are employments, too, +wherein it is not called for. Mere clerkship, for instance, is an +occupation of such uniformity that a man is just like a sewing-machine, +and where, the work being adjusted to him, he performs it as a matter of +routine. There are, however, stations which are more or less provocative +of tact and ready-wittedness, and which require those qualities which +schoolmasters cannot give nor Civil Service examiners take away; such as +tact, promptitude, quickness in emergency, good-natured ease, patience, +and pluck above all. These, I say, are great gifts, and it would be well +if we knew how to find them. Let us take, by way of illustration, the +Messenger Service. These Foreign Office Mercuries, who travel the whole +globe at a pace only short of the telegraph, are wonderful fellows, and +must of necessity be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, and +yet how easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be equal +to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad roads and bad +dinners, bad servants and bad smells! How patient they must be here—how +peremptory there! How they must train their stomach to long fastings, and +their skins to little soap! What can Civil Service examination discover of +all or any of these aptitudes? Is it written in Ollendorf, think you, how +many hours a man can sit in a caleche? Will decimal fractions support his +back or strengthen his lumbar vertebrae? What system of inquiry will +declare whether the weary traveller will not oversleep himself, or smash +the head of his postilion for not awaking him at a frontier? How will you +test readiness, endurance, politeness, familiarity with ‘Bradshaw’ and +Continental moneys? +</p> +<p> +I think I have hit on a plan for this, suggested to me, I frankly own, by +analogy with the clinical system. I would lay out the Green Park—it +is convenient to Downing Street, and well suited to the purpose—as a +map of Europe, marking out the boundaries of each country, and stationing +posts to represent capital cities. At certain frontiers I would station +representatives of the different nations as distinctly marked as I could +procure them: that is to say, I’d have a very polite Frenchman, a very +rude and insolent Prussian, a sulky Belgian, a roguish Italian, and an +extremely dirty Russian. Leicester Square could supply all. It being all +duly prepared, I’d start my candidate, with a heavy bag filled with its +usual contents of, let us say, a large box of cigars, a set of fire-irons, +twenty pots of preserved meats, a case of stuffed birds, four +cricket-balls, and a photograph machine, some blue-books, and a dozen of +blacking. I’d start him with this, saying simply, “Vienna, calling at +Stuttgart and Turin;” not a word more; and then I’d watch my man—how +he’d cross the Channel—how he’d cajole Moossoo—and whether +he’d make straight for the Rhine or get entangled in Belgian railroads. +I’d soon see how he dealt with the embarrassments of the roads and +relished the bad diet; and not alone would I test him by hardships and +hunger, fatigue and occasional upsets; but I’d try his powers of +self-resistance by surrounding him with dissolute young <i>attachés</i> +given to blind hookey and lansquenet. I’d have him invited to ravishing +orgies, and tempted in as many ways as St Anthony; and all these after +long privations. Then, I’d have him kept waiting either under a blazing +sun or a deep snow, or both alternately, to test his cerebral +organisation; and I’d try him with impure drinking water and damp sheets; +and, last of all, on his return, I’d make him pass his accounts before +some old monster of official savagery, who would repeatedly impugn his +honesty, call out for vouchers, and d—n his eyes. The man “who came +out strong” after all these difficulties I would accept as fully equal to +his responsibilities, for it would not be alone in intellectuals he had +been tested: the man’s temper, his patience, his powers of endurance, his +physical strength, his resources in emergency, his readiness to meet +difficulty, and, last of all, his self-devotion in matters of official +discipline, enabling him to combine with all the noble qualities of a man +the submissive attractions of a spaniel. +</p> +<p> +“Are you sure,” asks some one, “that all these graces and accomplishments +can be had for £500 per annum?” Not a doubt of it. It is a cheap age we +live in; and if you wanted a shipload of clever fellows for a new colony, +I’d engage to supply you on easier terms than with the same number of +gardeners or strong-boned housemaids. +</p> +<p> +Last of all, this scheme might be made no small attraction in this +economical era—what is called self-supporting; for the public might +be admitted to paid seats, whence they could learn European geography by a +new and easy method. “Families admitted at a reduced rate—Schools +and Seminaries half-price.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. +</h2> +<p> +Whenever the Budget comes on for discussion there are some three or four +speakers, of whom Mr Williams of Lambeth is sure to be one, ready to +suggest certain obvious economies by the suppression of some foreign +missions, such as Dresden, Hanover, Stuttgart, &c. They have not, it +is true, anything forcible or pungent to say on the subject; but as they +say the same thing every year, the chances are that, on the drip-drip +principle, they will at last succeed either in abolishing these +appointments, or reducing the salaries of those who hold them. +</p> +<p> +Ministers of course defend them, and Opposition leaders, who hope one day +to be Ministers, will also blandly say a word or two in their favour. For +my own part, I don’t think the country cares much about the matter, or +interests itself more deeply who drones away life at Hanover than who +occupies an apartment at Hampton Court. In each case it is a sort of +dowager asylum, where antiquated respectability may rest and be thankful. +</p> +<p> +The occupants of these snug berths, however far from England—at +least in so far as regards any knowledge of public opinion—are sure +to be greatly alarmed at these suggestions for their suppression. Poor +pigeons! if you only knew what a sorry sportsman it is who fires at you, +you’d never flutter a wing. Be of good heart, I say. Even if Williams’s +gun go off at all, the recoil may hurt himself, but it will never damage +you. Take my word for it, “the smooth-Bore of Lambeth never hit anything +yet.” This assurance of mine—I have given it scores of times +personally—never gives the comfort that it ought; for these timid +souls, bullied by long dealings with the Office—tormented, as Mr +Carlyle would say, with much First Clerk—grow to be easily +panic-stricken, and have gloomy nightmares of a time when there shall be +no more life-certificates nor any quarter-days. +</p> +<p> +I cannot enter into their feelings, but I suppose they are reasonable. I +conclude that one would like to have a salary, and to be paid it +punctually. Self-preservation is a law that we all recognise; and some of +these officials may possibly feel that there is no other line of life open +to them, and that, if you take away from them their mission, they will be +poor indeed. You will think me perhaps as absurd as Mrs Nickleby, who +connected roast-pork and canaries, if I confess to you that it is an old +mastiff that my father had when I was a boy that brought these people very +forcibly to my mind. Poor old Turco!—I can’t know how old he was, +but he was nearly blind, exceedingly feeble, intensely stupid, and much +given to sleep. Still, whenever any one of the family—he didn’t mind +the servants—would go out to the stableyard, he’d rouse himself up, +and, affecting to believe it was an intruder, he’d give a fierce bark or +two, when, discovering his error, he’d wag his tail and go back to his den—all +this being evidently done to show that he was as vigilant as ever—a +sort of protest, that said, “Don’t believe one word about my being blind +and toothless, still less flatter yourself that the place is secure. It +requires all my activity and watchfulness to protect; but go back in +peace, I’m ready for them.” + </p> +<p> +Now, this is exactly what Turco is doing at Munich and Dresden. Whenever +Williams comes out with a hint that he is not wanted, Turco makes a +furious noise, rushes here and there after a turkey-cock if he can find +one, and thoroughly satisfies the family that he is an invaluable beast, +and could not be dispensed with. +</p> +<p> +Like Turco, too, who always barked, or tried to bark, whenever he heard +any noise or commotion going on outside, these people are sure to make an +uproar if there be any excitement in their neighbourhood. No sooner did +Schleswig-Holstein begin to trouble the world, than despatches began to +pour in from places that a few weeks before even the messengers scarcely +knew on the map. They related interviews with unknown princes and +unheard-of ministers, and spoke of hopes, fears, wishes, and anxieties of +people who had not, to our appreciation, a more palpable existence than +the creatures of the heathen mythology! Much grumbling, and sore of ear, +Williams goes back to his kennel. +</p> +<p> +“What! suppress the mission at Hohen-Schwein-stadt, when I hold here,” + exclaims the Minister, “the admirable report of our diplomatic agent on +the state of public feeling in that important capital? Will the honourable +gentleman, to whose long experience of foreign politics I am ready to bow, +inform me how the relations of England with the Continent are to be +carried on unless through the intervention of such appointments? Can the +honourable member for ———” (a shipowner, perhaps) “carry +on his great and important business without agencies? Can the honourable +gentleman himself” (a brewer) “be certain that the invigorating and +admirable produce of his manufacture will attain the celebrity that it +merits, or become the daily beverage of countless thousands in the +tropics, unassisted by those aids which to commerce or diplomacy are alike +indispensable?” This is very like the Premier’s eloquence. I almost think +I am listening to him, and even see the smile of triumph with which he +appeals at the peroration to his friends to cheer him. Turco is safe this +time; and, better still, he need never bark again till next Easter and +another Budget. +</p> +<p> +It is a very curious thing—it opens a whole realm of speculation—how +small and few are the devices of humanity. We fancy we are progressing +simply because we change. We give up alchemy, and we believe in medicine; +we scout witchcraft, and we take to spirit-rapping; and instead of +monasteries and monks, we have missions and plenipotentiaries. If it be a +fine thing to die for one’s country, it’s a pleasant one to live for it; +to know that you inhabit an impenetrable retreat, which no “Own +Correspondents” ever invade, and where, if it was not for Williams, no +sense of fear or alarm could come to disturb the tranquil surface of a +stagnant existence. +</p> +<p> +It is astonishing, too, what a wholesome dread and apprehension of England +and English power is maintained through the means of these small legations +in secluded spots of the Continent, in remote little duchies, without +trade or commerce, far away from the sea, where no one ever heard of +imports or exports, and the name of Gladstone had never been spoken. In +such places as these, a meddlesome old envoy, with plenty of spare time on +hand, often gets us thoroughly hated, always referring to England as a +sort of court of last appeal on every question, social, moral, religious, +or political, and dimly alluding to Lord Palmerston as a kind of +Rhadamanthus, whose judgments fall heavily on ill-doers. +</p> +<p> +The helpless hopeless condition of small states in all such conflicts was +actually pitiable. The poor little trembling King Charles dog in the cage +of the lion, and who felt that he only lived on sufferance, was the type +of them. I remember an incident which occurred some years ago at the Bagni +di Lucca, which will illustrate what I mean. An English stranger at one of +the hotels, after washing his hands, threw his basinful of soap-and-water +out of the window just as the Grand-duke was passing, deluging his +imperial highness from head to foot. The stranger hurried at once to the +street, and, throwing himself before the dripping sovereign, made the most +humble and apologetic excuses for his act; but the Grand-duke stopped him +short at once, saying, “There, there! say no more of it: don’t mention the +matter to any one, or I shall get into a correspondence with Palmerston, +and be compelled to pay a round sum to you for damages!” + </p> +<p> +After all, one could say for these small posts in diplomacy what, I think +it was Croker said for certain rotten boroughs in former days, “If you had +not had such posts, you would have lost the services of a number of able +and instructive men, who, entering public life by the small door, are sure +to leave it by the grand entrance.” + </p> +<p> +These small missions are very often charming centres of society in places +one would scarcely hope for it; and from these little-known legations, +every now and then, issue men whom it would not be safe for Williams to +bark at, and whom, even if he were rabid, he would not bite. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. +</h2> +<p> +What a number of ingenious reasons have been latterly given for the +decline of the Drama, and the decrease of interest now felt for the stage. +Some aver that people are nowadays too cultivated, too highly educated, to +take pleasure in a play; others opine that the novel has supplanted the +drama; others again declare that it is the prevalence of a religious +sentiment on the subject that has damaged theatrical representation. For +my own part, I take a totally different view of the subject. My notion is +this: the world will never pay a high price for an inferior article, if it +can obtain a first-rate one for nothing; in other words, people are come +to the conclusion that the best actors are not to be found on the boards +of the Haymarket or the Adelphi, but in the world at large—at the +Exchange, in the parks, on railroads or river-steamers, at the soirées of +learned societies, in Parliament, at Civic dinners or Episcopal +visitations. +</p> +<p> +Why has the masquerade ceased to interest and amuse? Simply because no +travestie of costume, no change of condition, is so strikingly ludicrous +as what we see on every side of us. The illiterate man with the revenue of +a prince; the millionaire who cannot write his name, and whom yesterday we +saw as a navvy; the Emperor who, a few years back, lodged over the +bootmaker’s; the out-at-elbow followers of imperial fortune, now raised to +the highest splendour, and dispensing hospitalities more than regal in +magnificence;—these are the spectacles which make the masquerade a +tiresome mockery; and it is exactly because we get the veritable article +for nothing that we neither seek playhouse nor ballroom, but go out into +the streets and highways for our drama, and take our Kembles and Macreadys +as we find them at taverns, at railway-stations, on the grassy slopes of +Malvern, or the breezy cliffs of Brighton. Once admit that the wild-flower +plucked at random has more true delicacy of tint and elegance of form, and +there is no going back to the tasteless mockery of artificial wax and +wire. The broad boards of real life are the true stage; and he who cannot +find matter of interest or amusement in the piece performed, may rely upon +it that the cause is in himself, and not in the drama. Some will say, The +world is just what it always was. People are no more fictitious now than +at any other time. There was always, and there will be always, a certain +amount of false pretension in life which you may, if you like, call +acting. And to this I demur <i>in toto</i>, and assert that as every age +has its peculiar stamp of military glory, or money-seeking, or religious +fervour, or dissipation, or scientific discovery, or unprofitable +trifling, so the mark of our own time will be found to be its thorough +unreality. Every one is in travestie. Selfishness is got up to play +philanthropy, apathy to perform zeal, intense self-seeking goes in for +love of country; and, to crown all, one of the most ordinary and vulgar +minds of all Europe now directs and disposes of the fate and fortunes of +all Christendom. +</p> +<p> +Daily habit familiarises us with the acting of the barrister. His generous +trustfulness, his love of all that is good, his scorn for Vice, his noble +pity, and the withering sarcasm with which he scathes the ill-doer, we +know, can be had, in common cases, for ten pounds ten shillings; and five +times as much will enlist in our service the same qualities in a less +diluted form; while, by quadrupling the latter sum, we arrive at a +self-devotion before which brotherly love pales, and old friendships seem +a cold and selfish indifferentism. We had contracted for this man’s +acuteness, his subtlety, his quick perception, and his ready-wittedness; +but he gives, besides these, his hearty trustfulness, his faith in our +honour, his conviction in our integrity: he knows our motives; he has been +inside our bosom, and comes out to declare that all is pure and spotless +there; and he does this with a trembling lip and a swelling throat, the +sweat on his brow and the tear in his eye, it being all the while a matter +of mere accident that he had not been engaged on the opposite side, and +all the love he bears us been “briefed” for the defendant. +</p> +<p> +Look at the physician, too. Who is it, then, enters the sick-room with the +footfall of a cat, and draws our curtain as gently as a zephyr might stir +a rose-leaf, whose tender accents fall softly on our ear, and who asks +with the fondest anxiety how we have passed the night? Who is it that +cheers, consoles, encourages, and supports us? Who associates himself with +our sufferings, and winces under our pain, and as suddenly rallies as we +grow better, and joins in our little sickbed drolleries? Who does all +these?—a consummate actor, who takes from thirty to forty daily +“benefits,” and whose performances are paid at a guinea a scene! +</p> +<p> +The candidate on the hustings, the Government commissioner on his tour of +inspection, the vicar-general of my lord bishop, the admiral on his +station, the minister at the grand-ducal Court, are all good specimens of +common acting—parts which can be filled with very ordinary +capacities, and not above the powers of everyday artists. They conjugate +but one verb, and on its moods and tenses they trade to the end of the +chapter. These men never soar into the heroic regions of the drama; they +infuse no imagination into their parts. They are as unpoetical as a +lord-in-waiting. There are but two stops on their organ. They are bland, +or they are overbearing; they are either beautifully gentle, or they are +terrible in their wrath. +</p> +<p> +It is a strange feature of our age that the highest walk of the real-life +drama should be given up to the men of money, and that Finance should be +the most suggestive of all that is creative, fanciful, and imaginative. +What a commentary on our era! It is no paradox I pronounce here. The +greatest actor I ever saw, the most consummate artist, was a railroad +contractor; that is, he had more persuasiveness, more of that magnetic +captivation which subordinates reason to mere hope, than any one I ever +listened to. He scorned the pictorial, he despised all landscape effects, +he summoned to his aid no assistance from gorge or mountain, no +deep-bosomed wood or bright eddying river; he was a man of culverts and +cuttings, of quartz and limestone and flint; with a glance he could +estimate traffic, and with the speed of the lightning-flash tell you what +dividend could come of the shares. +</p> +<p> +It was, however, in results that he was grandiose. Hear him on the theme +of a completed line, a newly-opened tunnel, or a finished viaduct—it +was a Poem! Such a picture of gushing beatitude as he could paint! It was +the golden age—prosperity, happiness, and peace on every side; the +song of the husbandman at his plough mingling with the hum of the village +school; the thousand forms of civilisation, from cheap sugar to penny +serials, that would permeate the land; the peasant studying social science +over his tea, and the railway-guard supping his “cheap Gladstone” as he +speculated on the Antiquity of Man. Never was such an Eden on earth, and +all to be accomplished at the cost of a mere million or two, with a +“limited liability.” + </p> +<p> +With what a grand contempt this great man talked of the people who busied +themselves in the visionary pursuits of politics or literature, or who +devoted themselves to the Arts or Field-sports! With him earthworks were +the grandest achievements of humanity, and there was no such civiliser as +a parliamentary train. Had he been simply an enthusiast, that fatal false +logic that <i>will</i> track enthusiasm—however it be guided—would +have betrayed him: but the man was not an enthusiast—he was a great +actor; and while to capitalists and speculators he appealed by all the +seductive inducements of profits, premiums, and preference shares, to the +outer and unmoneyed world he made his approaches by a beautiful and +touching philanthropy. +</p> +<p> +Did he believe in all this? Heaven knows. He talked and acted as if he +did; and though, when I last saw him, he had smashed his banker, ruined +his company, and beggared the shareholders, he was high-hearted, hopeful, +and buoyant as ever. It was a general who had lost a battle, but he meant +to recruit another army. It was some accidental rumour of a war—some +stupid disturbance on the Danube or the Black Sea—that had +frightened capital and made “money tight.” The scheme itself was a +glorious project—an unrivalled investment. Never was there such a +paying line—innumerable towns, filled with a most migratory +population, ever on the move, and only needing to learn the use of certain +luxuries to be constantly in demand of them. +</p> +<p> +With a good harvest, however, and money easy, if Lord Russell could only +be commonly civil to the Continental Cabinets, all would go well yet. The +bounties of Providence would be diffused over the earth—food would +be cheap, taxation reduced, labour plenty, and “then, sir, these worthy +people shall have their line, if I die for it.” + </p> +<p> +I find it very hard to believe in Borneo’s love or Othello’s jealousy. I +cannot, let me do all that I will, accept them as real, even in their most +impassioned moments, and yet this other man holds me captive. If I had a +hundred pounds in the world, I’d put it into his scheme, and I really feel +that, in not borrowing the money to make a venture, I am a poor-spirited +creature that has not the courage to win his way to fortune. +</p> +<p> +And yet these fellows have no aid from dress or make-up. They are not +surrounded with all the appliances that aid a deception. They come to us +in their everyday apparel, and, mayhap, at inopportune moments, when we +are weary, or busy, or out of sorts, to talk of what we are not interested +in, and have no relish for. With their marvellous tact they conquer apathy +and overcome repugnance; they gain a hearing, and they obtain at least +time for more. There is much in what they say that we feel no interest in; +but now and then they <i>do</i> touch a chord that vibrates within us; and +when they do so, it is like magic the instinct with which they know it. It +was that Roman camp, that lead-mine, that trout-stream, or that +paper-mill, did the thing; and the rogue saw it as plainly as if he had a +peep into our brain, and could read our thoughts like a printed book. +These then, I say, are the truly great actors, who walk the boards of life +with unwritten parts, who are the masters of our emotions, even to the +extent of taking away our money, and who demand our trustfulness as a +right not to be denied them. +</p> +<p> +Now, what a poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly +and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is +going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed +plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive thing +that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, at the station, +in the club, on the chain-pier, or the penny steamer? Is there any one, I +ask, who will pay to see the plaster-cast when he can behold the marble +original for nothing? You say, “Are you going to the masquerade?” and I +answer, “I am at it.” <i>Circumspice!</i> Look at the mock royalties +hunting (Louis XIV. fashion) in the deep woods of Fontainebleau. Look at +haughty lords and ladies—the haughtiest the earth has ever seen—vying +in public testimonies of homage—as we saw a few days ago—to +the very qualities that, if they mean anything, mean the subversion of +their order. Look at the wasteful abundance of a prison dietary, and the +laudable economy which half-starves the workhouse. Look at the famished +curate, with little beyond Greek roots to support him, and see the +millionaire, who can but write his name, with a princely fortune; and do +you want Webster or Buckstone to give these “characters” more point? +</p> +<p> +Will you take a box for the ‘Comedy of Errors,’ when you can walk into the +Chancery Court for nothing? Will you pay for ‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ +when a friendly order can admit you to the House? And as for a ‘New Way to +Pay Old Debts,’ commend me to Commissioner Goulburn in Bankruptcy; while +‘Love’s Last Shift’ is daily performed at the Court of Probate, under the +distinguished patronage of Judge Wills. Is there any need to puzzle one’s +head over the decline of the drama, then? You might as well ask if a +moderate smoker will pay exorbitantly for dried cabbage-leaves, when he +can have prime Cubans for the trouble of taking them! +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. +</h2> +<p> +I do not remember ever to have read more pompons nonsense than was talked +a few days ago in Parliament on the subject of pensions for retired +colonial governors. +</p> +<p> +On all ordinary occasions the strongest case a man can have with the +British public is to be an ill-used man—that is to say, if you be a +man of mark, or note, or station. To be ill-used, as one poor, friendless, +and ignoble, is no more than the complement of your condition. It is in +the fitness of things that pauperism, which we English have declared to be +illegal, should neither be fondled nor caressed. To be ill-used profitably +there must be something pictorial in your case; it must have its reliefs +of light as well as shade. There must be little touches, a bright “has +been,” sunny spots of a happy past Without the force of these contrasts, +there is no possibility of establishing the grand grievance which is +embodied in ill-usage. +</p> +<p> +Now, Mr B. C. who brought on this motion was a sorry artist, and the whole +sum and substance of his case was, that as we secured the services of +eminent and able men, we ought to pay them “properly.” Why, in that one +word “properly” lay the whole question. What constitutes proper payment? +Every career in life carries with it some circumstance either of advantage +or the reverse, which either compensates for the loss of a material +benefit, or is requited by some addition of a tangible profit. The +educated man who accepts three hundred a-year in the Church is not +recompensed, or considered to be recompensed, by this miserable pittance. +It is in the respect, the influence, the power, and the reverence that +attach to his calling he is rewarded. Place a layman in the parish beside +him with that income, and mark the difference of their stations! The same +of the soldier. Why or how does seven-and-sixpence diurnally represent one +the equal of the best in any society of the land? Simply by a conventional +treaty, by which we admit that a man, at the loss of so much hard cash, +may enjoy a station which bears no imaginable proportion to his means. +</p> +<p> +On the other hand, there are large communities who, addressing themselves +to acquire wealth and riches, care very little for the adventitious +advantages of social state. As it is told of Theodore Hook, at a Lord +Mayor’s feast, that he laid down his knife and fork at the fifth course, +and declared “he would take the rest out in money;” so there are scores of +people who “go in” for the actual and the real. They have no sympathy with +those who “take out” their social status partly in condition partly in +cash, as is the case with the curate and the captain. +</p> +<p> +Almost every man, at his outset in life, makes some computation of how +much his career can pay him in money, how much in the advantages of rank +and station. The bailiff on the estate makes very often a far better +income than the village doctor; but do you believe that Æsculapius would +change places with him for all that? Is not the unbought deference to his +opinion, the respect to his acquirements, the obedience to his counsel, +something in the contract he makes with the world? Does he not recognise, +every day of his life, that he is not measured by the dimensions of the +small house he resides in, or the humble qualities of the hack he rides, +but that he has an acceptance in society totally removed from every +question of his fortune? +</p> +<p> +In the great lottery we call life, the prizes differ in many things +besides degree. If the man of high ambition determine to strain every +nerve to attain a station of eminence and power, it may be that his +intellectual equal, fonder of ease, more disposed to tranquillity, will +settle down with a career that at the very best will only remove him a +step above poverty; and shall we dare to say that either is wrong? My +brother the Lord Chancellor is a great man, no doubt. The mace is a +splendid club, and the woolsack a most luxurious sofa; but as I walk my +village rounds of a summer’s morning, inhaling perfume of earth and plant, +following with my eye the ever-mounting lark, have I not a lighter heart, +a freer step, a less wearied head? Have I not risen refreshed from sleep? +not nightmared by the cutting sarcasms of some noble earl on my fresh-gilt +coronet, some slighting allusion to my “newness in that place”? Depend +upon it, the grand law of compensation which we recognise throughout +universal nature extends to the artificial conditions of daily life, and +regulates the action and adjusts the inequalities of our social state. +</p> +<p> +What is a viceroy or a colonial governor? A man of eminence and ability, +doubtless, but who is satisfied to estrange himself from home and country, +and occupy himself with cares and interests totally new and strange to +him, for some five or fifteen thousand pounds a-year, plus a great variety +of other things, which to certain minds unquestionably represent high +value—the—station, the power, the prestige of a great +position, with all its surroundings of deference and homage. Large as his +salary is, it is the least distinctive feature of his high office. In +every attribute of rank the man is a king. In his presence the wisest and +the most gifted do no more than insinuate the words of their wisdom, and +beauty retires curtsying, after a few commonplaces from his lips. Why, +through all the employments of life, who ever attains to the like of this? +His presence is an honour, his notice is fame. To be his guest is a +distinction for a day; to be his host is to be illustrious for a lifetime. +Are these things nothing? Ask the noble earl as he sits in his howdah; ask +my lord marquis as he rides forth with a glittering staff. +</p> +<p> +Did any one, even Mr B. C. himself, ever imagine that Mr Macready ought to +be pensioned after he had played Cardinal Wolsey? Was it ever proposed, +even in Parliament, that Mr Kean should have a retiring allowance when he +had taken off his robes as Henry IV.? These eminent men were, however, +just as real, just as actual, during their brief hour on the stage, as His +Excellency the Viceroy or the “Lord High.” They were there under a +precisely similar compact. They had to represent a state which had no +permanence, and a power that had no stability. They were to utter words +which would be ridiculous from their lips to-morrow, and to assume a port +and bearing that must be abandoned when they retired to change their +clothes. +</p> +<p> +It is one of my very oldest memories as a boy that I dined in company with +Charles Kemble. There was a good deal of talking, and a fair share of +wine-drinking. In the course of the former came the question of the French +Revolution of ‘30, and the conduct of the French King on that occasion. +Kemble took no part in the discussion; he listened, or seemed to listen, +filled his glass and emptied it, but never spoke. At last, when each +speaker appeared to have said his say, and the subject approached +exhaustion, the great actor, with the solemnity of a judge in a charge, +and with a grand resonance of voice, said: “I’ll tell you how it is, sirs; +Charles X. has forfeited a—a—a right good engagement!” And +that was exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are now +taking, of kings and rulers—and let us profit by it. The colonial +king has his “engagement;” it is defined exactly like the actor’s. He is +to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour in +the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not always, +of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes seriously in +him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some impassioned moment or +other like that in which I once knew Othello so far carried away that he +flung Iago into the orchestra. +</p> +<p> +Pension Carlisle, pension Storks, if you will; but be just as well as +generous, and take care that you provide for Paul Bedford and Buckstone. +</p> +<p> +In Archbishop Whately’s ‘Historic Doubts,’ we find that the existence of +the first emperor can be disproven by the very train of argument employed +to deny the apostles. Let me suggest the converse of this mode of +reasoning, and ask, Is there a word you can say for the Viceroy you cannot +equally say for the actor? Have you an argument for him who governs St +Helena that will not equally apply to him who struts his hour at the +Haymarket? +</p> +<p> +I perceive that the writer of a letter to the ‘Times’ advocates the claims +of the ex-Governors, on the plausible plea that it is exactly the very men +who best represent the dignity of the station—best reflect the +splendour of the Sovereign—who come back poor and penniless from the +high office: while the penurious Governor, who has given dissatisfaction +everywhere, made the colony half rebellious by his narrow economies, and +degraded his station by contemptible savings, comes back wealthy and +affluent—self-pensioned, in fact, and independent. +</p> +<p> +To meet this end, the writer suggests that the Crown, as advised thereon, +should have a discretionary power of rewarding the well-doer and refusing +the claim of the unmeriting, which would distinctly separate the case of +the worthy servant of the Sovereign from that of him who only employed his +office to enrich himself. +</p> +<p> +There is a certain shallow—it is a very shallow—plausibility +about this that attracts at first sight; and there would unquestionably be +some force in it, if dinner-giving and hospitalities generally were the +first requisites of a colonial ruler; but I cannot admit this. I cannot +believe that the man who administers India or Canada, or even Jamaica or +Barbadoes, is only an expatriated Lord Mayor. I will not willingly consent +to accept it as qualification for a high trust that a man has a good cook +and an admirable cellar, and an ostentatious tendency to display the +merits of both. Mind, I am no ascetic who say this: I like good dinners; I +like occasionally—only occasionally though—very good dinners. +I feel with a clever countryman who said he liked being asked out to dine, +“it was flattering, and it was nourishing;” but with all this I should +never think of “elevating my host” to the dignity of high statesmanship on +the mere plea of his hospitality. +</p> +<p> +We have had some able men in our dependencies who were not in the least +given to social enjoyments, who neither understood them for themselves nor +thought of them for others—Sir Charles Napier, for instance. And +who, let me ask, would have lost the services of such a man to the State, +because he had not the tastes of a Sir William Curtis, nor could add a +“Cubitt” to his stature? +</p> +<p> +All discretionary powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and +pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and +complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man. Not to +say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a Government +in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering a premium for +profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial fellow-subjects +the very habits and tastes which are the bane and destruction of young +communities. +</p> +<p> +Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the +ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the +509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland had +really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his +administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one +undeniable test of an ex-Governor’s due claim to a pension, since on the +question of a man’s hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There +are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours’ bordeaux. I +repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in a +police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, “Drunk and +Disorderly,” so should any commission on pensions accept as valid grounds +for a pension, “Insolvent and a Bankrupt.” + </p> +<p> +To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply +nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day +has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not +invited him to breakfast to-morrow. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A GRUMBLE. +</h2> +<p> +I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of +course—I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in +the same position to enjoy it as I was—years ago. I am delicate +about the figures, for Mrs O’D. occasionally reads these sketches, and +might feel a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat—I +wonder is life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance +with it? My impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all +the same elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young +people, and witty people, and, better, there are beautiful people, in +abundance. There are great houses as of yore, maintained, perhaps, with +even more than bygone splendour: the horses are as good—the dogs as +good—the trout-streams as well stocked—the grouse as abundant—foreign +travel is more easy—all travel is more facile—there are more +books and more illustrated newspapers; and yet, with all these advantages—very +tangible advantages too—I do not think the present occupants make +the house as pleasant as their fathers did, and for the very simple +reason, that they never try. +</p> +<p> +Indifferentism is the tone of the day. No one must be eager, pleased, +displeased, interested, or anxious about anything. Life is to be treated +as a tiresome sort of thing, but which is far too much beneath one to be +thought of seriously—a wearisome performance, which good manners +require you should sit out, though nothing obliges you to applaud or even +approve of it. This is the theory, and we have been most successful in +reducing it to practice. We are immensely bored, and we take good care so +shall be our neighbour. Just as we have voted that there is nothing new, +nothing strange, nothing amusing, we defy any one to differ with us, on +pain of pronouncing him vulgar. North American Indians are not more +case-hardened against any show of suffering under torture than are our +well-bred people against any manifestation of showing pleasure in +anything. “It wasn’t bad,” is about the highest expression of our praise; +and I doubt if we would accord more to heaven—if we got there. The +grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of amusement +without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor is any +expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He would +admit that “the Governor”—meaning his father—was surprised; he +would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As +the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the very +expression of the features. They are intensely like each other. We are +told that a shepherd will know the actual faces of all the sheep in his +flock, distinguishing each from each at a glance. I am curious to know if +the Bishop of London knows even the few lost sheep that browse about +Rotten Eow of an afternoon, and who are so familiar to us in Leech’s +sketches. There they are—whiskered, bearded, and bored; fine-looking +animals in their way, but just as much living creatures in ‘Punch’ as they +are yonder. It is said that they only want the stimulus of a necessity, +something of daring to tempt, or something of difficulty to provoke them, +to be just as bold and energetic as ever their fathers were. I don’t deny +it. I am only complaining of the system which makes sheep of them, reduces +life to a dreary table-land, making the stupid fellows the standard, and +coming down to their level for the sake of uniformity. Formerly they who +had more wit, more smartness, more worldly knowledge than their +neighbours, enjoyed a certain pre-eminence; the flash of their +agreeability lighted up the group they talked in, and they were valued and +sought after. Now the very homage rendered, even in this small way, was at +least a testimony that superiority was recognised and its claims admitted. +What is the case now? Apathy is excellence, and the nearest approach to +insensibility is the greatest eminence attainable. +</p> +<p> +In the Regency, when George IV. was Prince, the clever talkers certainly +abounded; and men talk well or ill exactly as there is a demand for the +article. The wittiest conversationalist that ever existed would be +powerless in a circle of these modern “Unsurprised ones.” Their vacant +self-possession would put down all the Grattans and Currans and Jeffreys +and Sydney Smiths in the world. I defy the most brilliant, the readiest, +the most genial of talkers to vivify the mass of inert dulness he will +find now at every dinner and in every drawing-room. +</p> +<p> +The code of modern manners is to make ease the first of all objects; and, +in order that the stupidest man may be at his ease, the ablest is to be +sacrificed. He who could bring vast stores of agreeability to the common +stock must not show his wares, because there are a store of incapables who +have nothing for the market. +</p> +<p> +They have a saying in Donegal, that “the water is so strong it requires +two whiskies;” but I would ask what amount of “spirits” would enliven this +dreariness; what infusion of pleasantry would make Brown and Jones +endurable when multiplied by what algebraists call an <i>x</i>—an +unknown quantity—of other Browns and Joneses? +</p> +<p> +We are constantly calling attention to the fact of the influence exerted +over morals and manners in France by the prevailing tone of the lighter +literature, and we mark the increasing licentiousness that has followed +such works as those of Eugene Sue and the younger Dumas. Let us not forget +to look at home, and see if, in the days when the Waverleys constituted +almost all our lighter reading, the tone of society was not higher, the +spirit more heroic, the current of thought and expression purer, than in +these realistic days, when we turn for amusement to descriptions of every +quaint vulgarity that makes up the life of the boarding-house or the +strolling theatre. +</p> +<p> +The glorious heroism of Scott’s novels was a fine stream to turn into the +turbid river of our worldliness and money-seeking. It was of incalculable +benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble devotion, high-hearted +courage, and unsullied purity. +</p> +<p> +I can remember the time when, as freshmen in our first year, we went about +talking to each other of ‘Ivanhoe’ and ‘Kenilworth;’ and I can remember, +too, when the glorious spirit of those novels had so possessed us, that +our romance elevated and warmed us to an unconscious imitation of the +noble thoughts and deeds we had been reading. +</p> +<p> +Smile if you like at our boyish enthusiasm, it was better than the mocking +spirit engendered by all this realism, or the insensate craving after +stimulus taught by sensation novels. +</p> +<p> +Now, I am not old enough to remember the great talkers of the time when +George III. was King, or those who made Carlton House famous; but I +belonged to a generation where these men were remembered, and where it was +common enough to hear stories of their Attic nights, those <i>noctes +cænæque deorum</i> which really in brilliancy must have far transcended +anything that Europe could boast of conversational power. The youth of the +time I speak of were full of these traditions. “If I am not the rose, I +grew near one,” was no foolish boast; and certainly there was both in the +tone of conversation and the temper of society a sentiment that showed how +the great men had influenced their age, and how, even after their sun had +gone down, a warm tint remained to remind the world of the glorious +splendour that had departed. +</p> +<p> +Being an Irishman, it is to Ireland I must go for my illustration, and it +is my pride to remember that I have seen some of those who were, in an age +of no common convivial excellence, amongst the first and the greatest. +They are gone, and I may speak of them by name—Lord Plunkett, the +Chief-Justice Bushe, Mr Casey, Sir Philip Crampton, Barré Beresford—I +need not go on. I have but to recall the leading men at the bar, to make +up a list of the most brilliant talkers that ever delighted society. Nor +was the soil exhausted with these; there came, so to say, a second crop—a +younger order of men—less versed in affairs, it is true, less imbued +with that vigorous conviviality that prevailed in their fathers’ days—but +of these I must not speak, for they have now grown up to great dignities +and stations, they have risen to eminence and honour and repute, and might +possibly be ashamed if it were known that they were once so agreeable. Let +me, however, record one who is no more, but who possessed the charm of +companionship to a degree I never knew equalled in all my varied +experiences of life,—one who could bring the stores of a +well-stocked mind, rich in scholarship, to bear upon any passing incident, +blended with the fascination of a manner that was irresistible. Highly +imaginative, and with a power of expression that was positively +marvellous, he gave to ordinary conversation an elevation that actually +conferred honour on those who were associated with it; and high above all +these gifts and graces, a noble nature, generous, hopeful, and confiding. +With an intellect that challenged any rivalry, he had, in all that touched +worldly matters, the simplicity of a child. To my countrymen it is +needless I should tell of whom I speak; to others, I say his name was +Mortimer O’Sullivan. The mellow cadence of his winning voice, the beam of +his honest eye, the generous smile that never knew scorn, are all before +me as I write, and I will write no more. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. +</h2> +<p> +There is a story current of a certain very eminent French naturalist, who +is so profoundly impressed by the truth of the Darwinian theory, that he +never passes the cage where the larger apes are confined in the Jardin des +Plantes without taking off his hat, making a profound obeisance, and +wishing them a <i>bon jour</i>. +</p> +<p> +This recognition is touching and graceful. The homage of the witches to +him who should be king hereafter, had in it a sort of mockery that made it +horrible; but here we have an act of generous courtesy, based alike on the +highest discoveries of science and the rules of the truest good-breeding. +</p> +<p> +The learned professor, with all the instincts of great acquirements and +much self-knowledge united, admits them at once to equality and fraternity—the +liberty, perhaps, they will have to wait some time for; but in that they +are no worse off than some millions of their fellow-countrymen. +</p> +<p> +One might speculate long—I don’t know exactly how profitably—on +the sense of gratitude these creatures must feel for this touching +kindness, how they must long for the good man’s visit, how they must +wonder by what steps he arrived at this astonishing knowledge, how +surprised they must feel that he does not make more converts; and, last of +all, what pains they must take to exhibit in their outward bearing and +behaviour that they are not unworthy of the high consideration he bestows +on them! Before him no monkey-tricks, no apish indecorums—none even +of those passing levities which young gorillas will indulge in just like +other youths. No; all must be staid, orderly, and respectful—heads +held well up—hands at rest—tails nowhere; in fact, a port and +bearing that would defy the most scrutinising observer to say that they +were less eligible company than that he had just quitted at the café. +</p> +<p> +I own I have not seen them during the moment of the Professor’s passage. I +am unable to state authentically whether all this be as I surmise, but I +have a strong impression it must be. Indeed, reflecting on the habits and +modes of the species, I should be rather disposed to believe them given to +an exuberant show of gratitude than to anything like indifference, and +expect to witness demonstrations of delight more natural possibly than +graceful. +</p> +<p> +Now, I have not the most remote intention of impugning the Professor’s +honesty. I give him credit—full credit—for high purpose, and +for high courage. “These poor brothers of ours,” says he, “have tails, it +is true, and they have not the hypocampus major; but let me ask you, +Monsieur le Duc, or you, Monseigneur the Archbishop, will you dare to +affirm on oath that you yourself are endowed with a hypocampus major or +minor? Are you prepared to stand forward and declare that the convolutions +of your brain are of the regulation standard—that the medullary part +is not disproportioned to the cineritious—that your falx is not +thicker or thinner than it ought—and that your optic thalami are not +too prominent? And if you are not ready to do this, what avails all your +assumption of superiority? In these—they are not many—lie the +alleged differences between you and your caged cousins yonder.” Thus +speaks, or might speak, the Professor; and, I repeat, I respect his +candour; but still I would venture to submit one small, perhaps ungenerous +doubt, and ask, Would he, acting on the noble instincts that move him, +vote these creatures an immediate and entire emancipation, or would he not +rather wait a while—a few years, say—till the habit of sitting +on chairs had worn off some of the tail, and a greater familiarity with +society suggested not to store up their dinner in their jaws? Would he +like to see them at once take their places in public life, become public +functionaries, and ministers, and grand cordons? +</p> +<p> +Would he not rather, with that philosophy his country eminently teaches, +say, “I will do the pity and the compassion. To me be the sympathetic part +of a graceful sorrow. To posterity I bequeath the recognition of these +poor captives. Let them be liberated, by all means; but let it be when I +shall be no longer here to witness it. Let others face that glorious +millennium of gorilla greatness.” + </p> +<p> +I am afraid he would reason in this fashion; it is one thing to have an +opinion, and to have what Frenchmen call the “courage of your opinion.” He +would say, “If Nature work surely, she works slowly; her changes are +measured, regular, and progressive. With her there are no paroxysms; all +is orderly—all is gradual It took centuries of centuries to advance +these poor creatures to the point they occupy; their next stage on the +journey is perhaps countless years away. I will not attempt to forestall +what I cannot assist. I will let Time do its work. They are not +ill-treated, besides; that large creature with the yellow eyebrows grinned +at me very pleasantly this morning, and the she-ourang-outang was whipping +her infant most naturally as I came by.” + </p> +<p> +“What a cold-blooded philanthropy is this!” cries another. “You say these +are our brothers and our kinsmen; you declare that anatomy only can detect +some small and insignificant discrepancies between us, and that even in +these there are some of whose functions we know nothing, and others, such +as the prehensile power, where the ape has the best of it. What do you +mean by keeping them there ‘cribbed, cabined, and confined’? Is a slight +frontal inclination to disqualify a person from being a prefect? Is an +additional joint in the coccyx to prevent a man sitting on the woolsack, +or an extra inch in the astragalus to interfere with his wearing spurs? If +there be minute differences between us, intercourse will abolish them. It +will be of inestimable service to yourselves to come into contact with +these fresh, fine, generous natures, uncontaminated by the vices of an +effete and worn-out civilisation. Great as are the benefits you extend to +them, they will repay you tenfold in the advantages to yourselves. Away +with your unworthy prejudices about a ‘black pigment’ and long heels! Take +them to your hearts and your hearths. You will find them brave—ay, +braver than your own race. Their teeth are whiter and their nails longer; +there is not a relation in life in which you will dare to call yourself +their better.” + </p> +<p> +I will go no farther, not merely because I have no liking for my theme, +but because I am pilfering. All these arguments—the very words +themselves—I have stolen from an American writer, who, in Horace +Greeley fashion, is addressing his countrymen on the subject of negro +equality. He not alone professes to show the humanity of the project, but +its policy—its even necessity. He declares to the whites, “You want +these people; without them you will sink lower and lower into that effete +degeneracy into which years of licentiousness have sunk you. These +gorillas—black men, I mean—are virtuous; they are abstemious; +they have a little smell, but no sensuality; they will make admirable +wives for your warriors; and who knows but one may be the mother of a +President as strikingly handsome as Ape Lincoln himself!” There is no +doubt much to be said for our long-heeled friends, whether with or without +a hypocampus major. I am not very certain that we compliment them in the +best taste when the handsomest thing we can say of them is, that they are +very like ourselves! It is our human mode, however, of expressing +admiration, and resembles the exclamation of the Oberland peasant on +seeing a pretty girl, “How handsome she’d be if she only had a <i>goître!</i>” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE RULE NISI. +</h2> +<p> +A great many sea-captains discourage the use of life-preservers and +floating-belts on board ships of war, on the simple ground that men should +not be taught to rely for their safety on anything but what conduces to +save the ship. “Let there be but one thought, one effort,” say they, “and +let that be for the common safety.” If they be right—and I suspect +they are—we have made a famous blunder by our late legislation about +divorce. Of all the crafts that ever were launched, marriage is one from +which fewest facilities of desertion should be provided. +</p> +<p> +Romanism makes very few mistakes in worldly matters. There is no feature +of that Church so remarkable as its deep study and thorough acquaintance +with all the moods and wants and wishes of humanity. Whatever its +demerits, one cannot but admit that no other religion ever approached it +in intimacy with the human heart in all its emotions and in all its +strivings, whether for good or evil. +</p> +<p> +Rome declares against all breach of the marriage tie. The Church, with a +spirit of concession it knows how to carry through all its dealings, +modifies, softens, assuages, but never severs conjugalism. It makes the +tie occasionally a slip-knot, but it never cuts the string, and I strongly +suspect that it is wise in its legislation. +</p> +<p> +For a great many years we gave the policy that amount of imitation we are +wont to accord to Romanist practices; that is, we follow them in part—we +adopt the coat, but, to show that we are not mere imitators, we cut off +one of the skirts; and if we do not make the garment more graceful, we at +least consult our dignity, and that is something. We made divorce the +privilege of men rich enough to come to Parliament for relief; we did with +the question what some one proposed we should do with poisons—make +them so costly that only wealthy men should be able to afford the luxury +of suicide. So long as men believed that divorce was immoral, I don’t +think any one complained that it should be limited to persons in +affluence. We are a lord-loving race, we English, and are quite ready to +concede that our superiors should have more vices than ourselves, just as +they have more horses and more pheasants; and we deemed it nothing odd or +strange that he, whose right it was to walk into the House of Peers, +should walk out of matrimony when it suited him. +</p> +<p> +Who knows?—perhaps we were flattered by the thought that great folk +so far conceded to a vulgar prejudice as to marry at all. Perhaps we +hailed their entrance into conjugalism as we are wont to do their +appearance at a circus or a public garden—a graceful acknowledgment +that they occasionally felt something like ourselves: at all events, we +liked it, and we showed we liked it by the zeal with which we read those +descriptions in newspapers of marriages in high life, and the delight with +which we talked to each other of people we never saw, nor probably ever +should see. It was not too much, therefore, to concede to them this +privilege of escape. It was very condescending of them to come to the play +at all; we had no right to insist that they should sit out the whole +performance. +</p> +<p> +By degrees, however, what with rich cotton-lords, and cheap cyclopaedias, +and penny trains, and popular lectures, there got up a sort of impression—it +was mere impression for a long time—that great folk had more than +their share of the puddings’ plums; and agitators began to bestir +themselves. What were the privileges of the higher classes which would sit +most gracefully on their inferiors? Naturally we bethought us of their +vices. It was not always so easy to adopt my lord’s urbanity, his +unassuming dignity, his well-bred ease; but one might reasonably aspire to +be as wicked. Sabbath-breaking had long since ceased to be the privilege +of the better classes, and so men’s minds reverted to the question of +divorce. “Let us get rid of our wives!” cried they; “who knows but the day +may come when we shall kill woodcocks?” + </p> +<p> +Now the law, in making divorce a very costly process, had simply desired +to secure its infrequency. It was not really meant to be a rich man’s +privilege. What was sought for was to oppose as many obstacles as could be +found, to throw in as many rocks as possible into the channel, so that +only he who was intently bent on navigating the stream would ever have the +energy to clear the passage. Nobody ever dreamed of making it an open +roadstead. In point of fact, the oft-boasted equality before the law is a +myth. The penalty which a labourer could endure without hardship might +break my lord’s heart; and in the very case before us of divorce, nothing +can possibly be more variable than the estimate formed of the divorced +individuals, according to the class of society they move in. +</p> +<p> +What would be a levity here, would be a serious immorality there; and a +little lower down again, a mere domestic arrangement, slightly more +decorous and a shade more legal than the old system of the halter and the +public sale. It was declared, however, that this “relief”—that is +the popular phrase in such matters—should be extended to the poor +man. It was decided that the privilege to get rid of a wife was, as Mr +Gladstone says of the electoral right, the inalienable claim of a freeman, +and the only course was to lower the franchise. +</p> +<p> +Let us own, too, we were ashamed, as we had good right to be ashamed, of +our old <i>crim. con.</i> law. Foreigners, especially Frenchmen, had rung +the changes on our coarse venality and corruption; and we had come to +perceive—it took some time, though—that moneyed damages were +scarcely the appropriate remedy for injured honour. +</p> +<p> +Last of all, free-trade notions had turned all our heads: we were for +getting rid of all restrictions on every side; and we went about repeating +to each other those wise saws about buying in the cheapest and selling in +the dearest market, and having whatever we wanted, and doing whatever we +liked with our own. We are, there is no denying it, a nation of +shopkeepers; and the spirit of trade can be tracked through every relation +of our lives. It is commerce gives the tone to all our dealings; and we +have carried its enactments into the most sacred of all our institutions, +and imparted a “limited liability” even to marriage. +</p> +<p> +Cheapness became the desideratum of our age, We insisted on cheap gloves +and shoes and wine and ribbons, and why not cheap divorces? Philosophers +tell us that the alternate action of the seasons is one of the purest and +most enduring of all sources of enjoyment; that perpetual summer or spring +would weary and depress; but in the ever-changing aspect of nature, and in +the stimulation which diversity excites, we find an unfailing +gratification. If, therefore, it be pleasant to be married, it may also be +agreeable to be unmarried. It takes some time, however, before society +accommodates itself to these new notions. The newly divorced, be it man or +woman, comes into the world like a patient after the smallpox—you +are not quite certain whether the period of contagion is past, or if it be +perfectly safe to go up and talk to him. In fact, you delay doing so till +some strong-minded friend or other goes boldly forward and shakes the +convalescent by the hand. Even still there will be timid people who know +perhaps that their delicacy of constitution renders them peculiarly +sensitive, and who will keep aloof after all. Of course, these and similar +prejudices will give way to time. We have our Probate Court; and the +phrase <i>co-respondent</i> is now familiar as a household word. +</p> +<p> +Now, however tempting the theme, I am not going to inquire whether we have +done wisely or the reverse by this piece of legislation; whether, by +instilling certain precepts of self-control, a larger spirit of +accommodation, and a more conciliatory disposition generally, we might +have removed some of the difficulties without the heroic remedy of the +decree <i>nisi</i>; whether, in fact, it might not have been better to +teach people to swim, or even float, rather than make this great issue of +cheap life-belts. I am so practical that I rather address myself to profit +by what is, than endeavour by any change to make it better. We live in a +statistical age. We are eternally inquiring who it is wants this, who +consumes that, who goes to such a place, who is liable to this or that +malady. Classification is a passion with us; and we have bulky volumes to +teach us what sorts of people have chest affections, what are most prone +to stomachic diseases, who have ophthalmia, and who the gout. We are also +instructed as to the kind of persons most disposed to insanity, and we +have a copious list of occupations given us which more or less incline +those who profess them to derangement. Even the Civil-Service Examiners +have contributed their share to this mass of entertaining knowledge, and +shown from what parts of the kingdom bad spellers habitually come, what +counties are celebrated for cacography, and in what districts etymology is +an unknown thing. Would it not, then, be a most interesting and +instructive statistic that would give us a tabular view of divorce, +showing in what classes frailty chiefly prevailed, with the relative +sexes, and also a glimpse at the ages? Imagine what a light the statement +would throw on the morality of classes, and what an incalculable benefit +to parents in the choice of a career for their children! For instance, no +sensible father would select a life of out-door exposure for a +weak-chested son, or make a sailor of one with an incurable sea-sickness. +In the same way would he be guided by the character of his children as to +the perils certain careers would expose them to. +</p> +<p> +A passing glance at the lists of divorce shows us that no “promovent”—it +is a delicate title, and I like it—no promovent figures oftener than +a civil engineer. Now, how instructive to inquire why! +</p> +<p> +What is there in embankments and earthworks and culverts that should +dispose the wife of him who makes them to infidelity? Why should a tunnel +only lead to domestic treachery? why must a cutting sever the heart that +designs it? I do not know; I cannot even guess. My ingenuity stands +stockstill at the question, and I can only re-echo, Why? +</p> +<p> +Next amongst the “predisposed” come schoolmasters, plasterers, &c. +What unseen thread runs through the woof of these natures, apparently so +little alike? It is the boast of modern science to settle much that once +was puzzling, and reconcile to a system what formerly appeared discordant. +How I wish some great Babbage-like intellect would bestir itself in this +inquiry. +</p> +<p> +Surely ethical questions are as well worthy of investigation as purely +physical or mechanical ones, and yet we ignore them most ignominiously. We +think no expense too great to test an Armstrong or a Whitworth gun; we +spend thousands to ascertain how far it will carry, what destructive force +it possesses, and how long it will resist explosion;—why not appoint +a commission of this nature on “conjugate;” why not ascertain, if we can, +what is the weak point in matrimony, and why are explosions so frequent? +Is the “cast” system a bad one, and must we pronounce “welding” a failure? +or, last of all, however wounding to our national vanity, do “they +understand these things better in France”? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ON CLIMBING BOYS. +</h2> +<p> +With the common fate of all things human, it is said that every career and +walk in life has some one peculiar disparagement—something that, +attaching to the duties of the station as a sort of special grievance, +serves to show that none of us, no matter how favoured, are to imagine +there can be any lot exempted from its share of troubles. Ask the soldier, +the sailor, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, or the actor, and each +will give you a friendly warning to adopt any other career than his own. +</p> +<p> +In most cases the <i>quid amarum</i>, the one bitter drop, is to be found +in the career itself, something that belongs to that one craft or calling; +just as the white-lead colic, for instance, is the fatal malady of +painters. There are, however, a few rare cases in which the detracting +element attaches itself to the followers and not to the profession, as +though it would seem there was a something in the daily working of that +peculiar craft which warped the minds and coerced the natures of men to be +different from what temperament and character should have made of them. +</p> +<p> +The two classes which most prominently exhibit what I mean are somewhat +socially separated, but they have a number of small analogies in common. +They are Sweeps and Statesmen! It would be tempting—but I resist the +temptation—to show how many points of resemblance unite them—how +each works in the dark, in a small, narrow, confined sphere, without view +or outlet; how the tendency of each is to scratch his way upwards and gain +the top, caring wonderfully little how black and dirty the process has +made him. One might even go farther, and mark how, when indolence or +weariness suggested sloth, the stimulus of a little fire underneath, +whether a few lighted straws or a Birmingham mass-meeting, was sure to +quicken progress and excite activity. +</p> +<p> +Again, I make this statement on the faith of Lord Shaftesbury, who +pronounced it before their Lordships in the Upper House:—“It is no +uncommon thing to buy and sell them. There is a regular traffic in them; +and through the agency of certain women, not the models of their sex, you +can get any quantity of them you want.” Last of all, on the same high +authority, we are told of their perfect inutility, “since there is nothing +that they do could not be better done by a machine.” + </p> +<p> +I resist, as I say, all temptations of this kind, and simply address +myself to the one point of similarity between them which illustrates the +theory with which I have started—and now to state this as formally +as I am able. Let me declare that in all the varied employments of life I +have never met with men who have the same dread of their possible +successors as sweeps and statesmen. The whole aim and object of each is +directed, first of all, to keep those who do their work as little as +possible, well knowing that the time will come when these small creatures +will find the space too confined for them, and set up for themselves. +</p> +<p> +A volume might be written on the subtle artifices adopted to keep them +“little”—the browbeatings, the insults, the crushing cruelties, the +spare diet intermixed with occasional stimulants, the irregular hours, and +the heat and confinement of the sphere they work in. Still, nature is +stronger than all these crafty contrivances. The little sweep will grow +into the big sweep, and the small under-sec. will scratch his way up to +the Cabinet I will not impose on my reader the burden of carrying along +with him this double load. I will address myself simply to one of these +careers—the Statesman’s. It is a strange but a most unquestionable +fact, that no other class of men are so ill-disposed to those who are the +most likely to succeed them—not of an Opposition, for that would be +natural enough, but of their own party, of their own colour, of their own +rearing. Let us be just: when a man has long enjoyed place, power, and +pre-eminence, dispensed honours and pensions and patronage, it is not a +small trial to discover that one of those little creatures he has made—whose +first scraper and brush he himself paid for—I can’t get rid of the +sweep out of my head—will turn insolently on him and declare that he +will no longer remain a subordinate, but go and set up for himself. This +is excessively hard, and might try the temper of a man even without a fit +of the gout. +</p> +<p> +It is exactly what has just happened; an apprentice, called Gladstone, +having made a sort of connection in Manchester and Birmingham, a district +abounding in tall chimneys, has given warning to his master Pam that he +will not sweep any longer. He is a bold, aspiring sort of lad, and he is +not satisfied with saying—as many others have done—that he is +getting too broad-shouldered for his work; but he declares that the +chimneys for the future must be all made bigger and the flues wider, just +because he likes climbing, and doesn’t mean to abandon it. There is no +doubt of it. Manchester and Stockport and Birmingham have put this in his +head. Their great smelting-houses and steam-power factories require big +chimneys; and being an overbearing set of self-made vulgar fellows, they +say they ought to be a law to all England. You don’t want to make +cotton-twist, or broad-gauge iron; so much the worse for you. It is the +grandest object of humanity. Providence created men to manufacture printed +cottons and cheap penknives. We of Manchester understand what our American +friends call manifest destiny; we know and feel ours will be—to rule +England. Once let us only introduce big chimneys, and you’ll see if you +won’t take to spinning-jennies and mules and treddles; and there’s that +climbing boy Gladstone declares he’ll not leave the business, but go up, +no matter how dirty the flue, the day we want him. +</p> +<p> +Some shrewd folk, who see farther into the millstone than their +neighbours, have hinted that this same boy is of a crotchety, intriguing +type, full of his own ingenuity, and enamoured of his own subtlety; so +that make the chimney how great you will, he’ll not go up it, but scratch +out another flue for himself, and come out, heaven knows where or how. +Indeed, they tell that on one occasion of an alarm of fire in the house—caused +by a pantry-boy called Russell burning some wasterpaper instead of going +up the chimney as he was ordered—this same Will began to tell how +the Greeks had no chimneys, and a mass of antiquarian rubbish of the same +kind, so that his master, losing patience, exclaimed, “Of all plagues in +the world he knew of none to compare with these ‘climbing boys!’” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +LINGUISTS +</h2> +<p> +There are two classes of people not a little thought of, and even +caressed, in society, and for whom I have ever felt a very humble estimate—the +men who play all manner of games, and the men who speak several languages. +I begin with the latter, and declare that, after a somewhat varied +experience of life, I never met a linguist that was above a third-rate +man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced upon a really able +man who had the talent for languages. +</p> +<p> +I am well aware that it sounds something little short of a heresy to make +this declaration. It is enough to make the blood of Civil-Service +Commissioners run cold to hear it. It sounds illiberal—and, worse, +it seems illogical. Why should any intellectual development imply +deficiency? Why should an acquirement argue a defect? I answer, I don’t +know—any more than I know why sanguineous people are hot-tempered, +and leuco-phlegmatic ones are more brooding in their wrath. If—for I +do not ask to be anything higher than empirical—if I find that +parsimonious people have generally thin noses, and that the snub is +associated with the spendthrift, I never trouble myself with the +demonstration, but I hug the fact, and endeavour to apply it. +</p> +<p> +In the same spirit, if I hear a man in a salon change from French to +German and thence diverge into Italian and Spanish, with possibly a brief +excursion into something Scandinavian or Sclav—at home in each and +all—I would no more think of associating him in my mind with +anything responsible in station or commanding in intellect, than I should +think of connecting the servant that announced me with the last brilliant +paper in the ‘Quarterly.’ +</p> +<p> +No man with a strongly-marked identity—and no really able man ever +existed without such—can subordinate that identity so far as to put +on the foreigner; and without this he never can attain that mastery of a +foreign language that makes the linguist. To be able to repeat +conventionalities—bringing them in at the telling moment, adjusting +phrases to emergencies, as a joiner adapts the pieces of wood to his +carpentry—may be, and is, a very neat and a very dexterous +performance, but it is scarcely the exercise to which a large capacity +will address itself. Imitation must be, in one sense or other, the +stronghold of the linguist—imitation of expression, of style, of +accent, of cadence, of tone. The linguist must not merely master grammar, +but he must manage gutturals. The mimicry must go farther: in simulating +expression it must affect the sentiment. You are not merely borrowing the +clothes, but you are pretending to put on the feelings, the thoughts, the +prejudices of the wearer. Now, what man with a strong nature can merge +himself so entirely in his fictitious being as not to burst the seams and +tear the lining of a garment that only impedes the free action of his +limbs, and actually threatens the very extinction of his respiration? +</p> +<p> +It is not merely by their greater adaptiveness that women are better +linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their more +subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which are +consequently less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual self. +And what is it that makes the men of mark or note, the cognate signs of +human algebra, but these same characteristics; not always good, not always +pleasant, not always genial, but always associated with something that +declares preeminence, and pronounces their owner to be a “representative +man”? +</p> +<p> +When Lord Ward replied to Prince Schwartzenberg’s flippant remark on the +bad French of English diplomatists by the apology, “that we had not +enjoyed the advantage of having our capital cities so often occupied by +French troops as some of our neighbours,” he uttered not merely a smart +epigram but a great philosophical truth. It was not alone that we had not +possessed the opportunity to pick up an accent, but that we had not +subordinated our minds and habits to French modes and ways of thought, and +that the tone and temper of the French people had not been beaten into us +by the roll of a French drum. One may buy an accomplishment too dearly. It +is possible to pay too much even for a Parisian pronunciation! Not only +have I never found a linguist a man of eminence, but I have never seen a +linguist who talked well. Fluent they are, of course, like the Stecknadel +gun of the Prussians, they can fire without cessation, but, like the same +weapon, they are comparatively aimless. It is a <i>feu roulant</i>, with +plenty of noise and some smoke, but very “few casualties” announce the +success. The greatest linguist of modern Europe, Mezzofanti, was a most +inferior man. Of the countries whose dialect he spoke to perfection, he +knew nothing. An old dictionary would have been to the full as +companionable. I find it very hard not to be personal just now, and give a +list—it would be a long one—of all the tiresome people I know, +who talk four, five, some of them six modern languages perfectly. It is +only with an effort I abstain from mentioning the names of some well-known +men who are the charming people at Borne and Vienna every winter, and each +summer are the delight of Ems, of Berlin, and of Ischl. What tyrants these +fellows are, too, over the men who have not got their gift of tongues! how +they out-talk them and overbear them! with what an insolent confidence +they fall back upon the petty superiority of their fluency, and lord it +over those who are immeasurably their masters! Just as Blondin might run +along the rigging of a three-decker, and pretend that his agility entitled +him to command a squadron! +</p> +<p> +Nothing, besides, is more imposing than the mock eloquence of good French. +The language in itself is so adaptive, it is so felicitous, it abounds in +such innumerable pleasant little analogies, such nice conceits and +suggestive drolleries, that he who acquires these has at will a whole +armoury of attack and defence. It actually requires years of habit to +accustom us to a display that we come at last to discover implies no +brilliancy whatever in him who exhibits, though it argues immense +resources in the treasury from which he derives this wealth. +</p> +<p> +I have known scores of delightful talkers—Frenchmen—who had no +other charm than what their language lent them. They were neither +profound, nor cultivated, nor witty—some were not even shrewd or +acute; but all were pleasant—pleasant in the use of a conversational +medium, of which the world has not the equal—a language that has its +set form of expression for every social eventuality, and that hits to a +nicety every contingency of the “salon;” for it is no more the language of +natural people than the essence of the perfumer’s shop is the odour of a +field flower. It is pre-eminently the medium of people who talk with tall +glasses before them, and an incense of truffles around them, and +well-dressed women—clever and witty, and not over-scrupulous in +their opinions—for their company. Then, French is unapproachable; +English would be totally unsuited to the occasion, and German even more +so. There is a flavour of sauer kraut about that unhappy tongue that would +vulgarise a Queen if she talked it. +</p> +<p> +To attain, therefore, the turns and tricks of this language—for it +is a Chinese puzzle in its involvements—what a life must a man have +led! What “terms” he must have “put in” at cafés and restaurants! What +seasons at small theatres—tripots and worse! What nights at +bals-masqués, Chateaux des Fleurs, and Cadrans rouges et bleus! What +doubtful company he must have often kept! What company a little more than +doubtful occasionally! What iniquities of French romance must he have +read, with all the cardinal virtues arrayed as the evil destinies of +humanity, and every wickedness paraded as that natural expansion of the +heart which alone raises man above the condition of the brute! I ask, if +proficiency must imply profligacy, would you not rather find a man break +down in his verbs than in his virtue? Would you not prefer a little +inaccuracy in his declensions to a total forgetfulness of the decalogue? +And, lastly of all, what man of real eminence could have masqueraded—for +it is masquerading—for years in this motley, and come out, after +all, with even a rag of his identity? +</p> +<p> +Many people would scruple to play at cards with a stranger whose mode of +dealing and general manipulation of the pack bespoke daily familiarity +with the play-table. They would infer that he was a regular and +professional gambler. In the very same way, and for the selfsame reason, +would I carefully avoid any close intimacy with the Englishman of fluent +French, well knowing he could not have graduated in that perfection save +at a certain price. But it is not at the moral aspect of the question I +desire particularly to look. I assert—and I repeat my assertion—that +these talkers of many tongues are poor creatures. There is no initiative +in them—they suggest nothing—they are vendors of second-hand +wares, and are not always even good selectors of what they sell. It is +only in narrative that they are at all endurable. They can <i>raconter</i>, +certainly; and so long as they go from salon to salon repeating in set +phrase some little misadventure or accident of the day, they are amusing; +but this is not conversation, and they do not converse. +</p> +<p> +“Every time a man acquires a new language, is he a new man?” is supposed +to have been a saying of Charles V.—a sentiment that, if he uttered +it, means more of sarcasm than of praise; for it is the very putting off a +man’s identity that establishes his weakness. All real force of character +excludes dualism. Every eminent, every able man has a certain integrity in +his nature that rejects this plasticity. +</p> +<p> +It is a very common habit, particularly with newspaper writers, to ascribe +skill in languages, and occasionally in games, to distinguished people. It +was but the other day we were told that Garibaldi spoke ten languages +fluently. Now Garibaldi is not really master of two. He speaks French +tolerably; and his native language is not Italian, but a patois-Genoese. +Cavour was called a linguist with almost as little truth; but people +repeat the story, just as they repeat that Napoleon I. was a great +chess-player. If his statecraft and his strategy had been on a par with +his chess, we should never have heard of Tilsit or Wagram. +</p> +<p> +Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, and George Canning, each of whom +administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, were not +linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence on record +that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not want to decry +the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that linguists—and +through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists—are for the most +part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than by the gift of +tongues; and I want to protest against the undue pre-eminence accorded to +the possessors of a small accomplishment, and the readiness with which the +world, especially the world of society, awards homage to an acquirement in +which a boarding-school Miss can surpass Lord Brougham. I mean to say a +word or two about those who have skill in games; but as they are of a +higher order of intelligence, I’ll wait till I have got “fresh wind” ere I +treat of <i>them</i>. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. +</h2> +<p> +As there are few better tests of the general health of an individual than +in the things he imagines to be injurious to him, so there is no surer +evidence of the delicate condition of a State than in the character of +those who are assumed to be dangerous to it. Now, after all that has been +said of Rome and the corruptions of Roman government, I do not know +anything so decidedly damnatory as the fact, to which allusion was lately +made in Parliament, that the Papal Government had ordered Mr Home, the +spiritualist, to quit the city and the States of his Holiness, and not to +return to them. +</p> +<p> +In what condition, I would ask, must a country be when such a man is +regarded as dangerous? and in what aspect of his character does the danger +consist? +</p> +<p> +Do we want ghosts or spirits to reveal to us any more of the iniquities of +that State than we already know? Is there a detail of its corrupt +administration that the press of Europe has not spread broadcast over the +world? What could Mr Home and all his spirits tell us of peculation, +theft, subornation, bigotry, and oppression, that the least observant +traveller has not brought home with him? +</p> +<p> +And then, as to the man himself, how puerile it is to give him this +importance! The solitary bit of cleverness about him is his statement that +he has no control whatever over the spirits that attend him. Asking him +not to summon them, is pretty like asking Mr Windham not to send for his +creditors. They come pretty much as they like, and probably their visits +are about equally profitable. +</p> +<p> +In this respect Home belongs to a very low order of his art. When Bosco +promises to make a bouquet out of a mouse-trap, or Houdin engages to +concoct a batter-pudding in your hat, each keeps his word. There is no +subterfuge about the temper the spirits may happen to be in, or of their +willingness or unwillingness to present themselves. The thing is done, and +we see it—or we think we see it, which comes much to the same. +</p> +<p> +With this provision of escape Mr Home secures himself against all failure. +Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more discriminating +and observant character than he liked or anticipated, and the exhibition +in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to do was, to aver that +the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown on <i>his</i> part Homer +was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon was indisposed to meet +company, and there was the end of it. You were invited to meet +celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they would present themselves. +</p> +<p> +On the other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered—when +the séance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and +hysterical as they ought to be—when the nervous lady sat beside the +timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia—the +artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that +astounded even himself. What limit is there, besides, to contagional +sympathy? Look at the crowded theatre, with its many-minded spectators, +and see how one impulse, communicated occasionally by a hireling, will set +the whole mass in a ferment of enthusiastic delight. Mark, too, how the +smile, that plays like an eddy on a lake, deepens into a laugh, and is +caught up by another and another, till the whole storm breaks out in a +hearty ocean of merriment. These, if you like, are spirits; but the great +masters of them are not men like Mr Home—they have ever been, and +still are, of a very different order. Shakespeare and Molière and +Cervantes knew something of the mode to summon these imps, and could make +them come at their bidding besides. +</p> +<p> +Was it—to come back to what I started with—was it in any +spirit of rivalry that the Papal Government drove Mr Home out of Home? Was +it that, assuming to have a monopoly in the wares he dealt in, they would +not stand a contraband trade? If so, their ground is at least defensible; +for what chance of attraction would there be for the winking Virgin in +competition with him who could “make a young lady ascend to the ceiling, +and come slowly down like a parachute!”—a spiritual fact I have +heard from witnesses who really, so far as character went, might challenge +any incredulity. +</p> +<p> +If the Cardinals were jealous of the Conjuror, the thing is intelligible +enough, and one must feel a certain degree of sympathy with the +old-established firm that had spent such enormous sums, and made such +stupendous preparations, when a pretender like this could come into +competition with them, without any other properties than could be carried +conveniently about him. +</p> +<p> +But let us be practical The Pope’s Government demanded of Mr Home that he +should have no dealings with the Evil One during his stay at Rome. Now, I +ask, what should we say of the efficacy of our police system if we were to +hear that the Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard lived in nightly terror of +the pickpockets who frequented that quarter, and came to Parliament with a +petition to accord him some greater security against their depredations? +Would not the natural reply be an exclamation of astonishment that he who +could summon to his aid every alphabetical blue-coat that ever handled a +truncheon, should deem any increased security necessary to his peace? And +so, would I ask, of what avail these crowds of cardinals—these +regiments of monsignori—these battalions of bishops, Arch and +simple?—of what use all the incense and these chanted litanies, +these eternal processions, and these saintly shin-bones borne in costly +array—if one poor mortal, supposed to live on visiting terms with +the Evil One, can strike such terror into the whole army led on by +Infallibility? +</p> +<p> +If I had been possessed of any peculiar dread of coming unexpectedly on +the Devil—as the old ladies of New York used to feel long ago about +suddenly meeting with the British army—I should certainly have +comforted myself by the thought that I could always go and sit down on the +steps of the Vatican. It would immediately have occurred to me, that as +Holyrood offers its sanctuary against the sheriff, the Quirinal would be +the sure retreat against Old Nick; and I have even pictured to myself the +rage of his disappointed malice as he saw me sheltering safely beneath a +protection he dared not invade. And now I am told to relinquish all the +blessed enjoyment of this immunity; that the Pope and the Cardinals and +Antonelli himself are not a whit better off than the rest of us; that if +Mr Home gets into Rome, there is nothing to prevent his having the Devil +at his tea-parties. What an ignoble confession is this! Who will step +forward any longer and contend that this costly system is to be +maintained, and all these saintly intercessors to be kept on the most +expensive of all pension-lists, if a poor creature like Home can overthrow +it all? +</p> +<p> +Can any one conceive such a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet and +purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing before +Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents to cross the +Tiber? +</p> +<p> +Why—I speak, of course, in the ignorance of a laic—but, I ask, +why not fumigate him and cleanse him? When I saw him last, the process +would not have been so supererogatory. Why not exorcise and defy him? Why +not say, Come, and bring your friend if you dare; you shall see how we +will treat you. Only try it It is what we have been asking for nigh two +thousand years. Let the great culprit step forward and plead to his +indictment. +</p> +<p> +I can fancy the Pope saying this—I can picture to myself the proud +attitude of the Pontiff declaring, “I have had enough of these small +devilries, like Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel—I am sick of +Mazzini and his petty followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at +once; if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to a compromise.” + This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that he +should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not +surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and +actually feared the debating powers of “Mr Potter of the Strikes.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. +</h2> +<p> +Nothing shows what a practical people we are more than our establishment +of insurances against railroad accidents. The spirit of commercial +enterprise, by which a man charters himself for a railroad voyage with an +insured cargo of his bones, ligaments, cartilage, and adipose tissue, +abundantly proves that we are nature’s own traders and shopkeepers. +</p> +<p> +Any ordinary people less imbued with Liverpool and Manchester notions +would have bestirred themselves how to prevent, or at least lessen, the +number of those casualties. They would have set to work to see what +provisions could be adopted to give greater security to travel. We, on the +contrary are too business-like to waste time on this inquiry. We are +convinced that, let us build ships ever so strong, there will still be +shipwrecks. So we feel assured that a certain number of railway accidents, +as they are called, will continue to occur—be as broad gauge as you +will! We accept the situation, therefore, as the French say, and insure; +that is to say, we book a bet at very long odds—say, three to a +thousand—that we shall be rolled up, cut in two, flattened into a +thin sheeting, and ground into an impalpable powder, between Croydon and +Brighton. If we arrive safe, the assurance office pockets a few shillings; +if we win our wager, our executor receives a thousand pounds. +</p> +<p> +It is about the grimmest kind of gambling ever man heard of; and yet we +see folk of the most unquestionable propriety—dignitaries of the +Church, judges, civil and uncivil servants of the Crown, and scores of +others, whom nothing would tempt into the Cursaal at Ems or Baden, as +coolly as possible playing this terrific game, and backing themselves +heavily for a dorsal paralysis, a depressed fracture of the cranium, or at +least a compound dislocation of the hip-joint. +</p> +<p> +Now, if the Protestant Church entertained what the Romanists call cases of +conscience, I should like greatly to ask, Is this right? Is it justifiable +to make a contingent profit out of your cerebral vertebrae or your +popliteal space? +</p> +<p> +We have long been derided and scoffed at for making connubialism +marketable, and putting a price on a wife’s infidelity, but it strikes me +this is something worse; for what, after all, is a rib—a false rib, +too—compared with the whole bony skeleton? +</p> +<p> +“Allah is Allah,” said the Turkish admiral to Lady Hester Stanhope, “but I +have got two anchors astern,” showing that, with all his fatalism, he did +not despise what are technically called human means. So the reverend +Archdeacon, going down for his sea-baths, might say, “I’m not quite sure +they’ll carry me safely, but it shall not be all misfortune—I’ll +take out some of it in money.” + </p> +<p> +The system, however, has its difficulties; for though it is a round game, +the stakes are apportioned with reference to the rank and condition of the +winner—as, for instance, the Solicitor-General’s collarbone is worth +a shoemaker’s whole body, and a Judge’s patella is of more value than a +dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This is a tremendous pull +against the company, who not only give long, but actually incalculable +odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can be crumpled up for two +hundred pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in the coupe cannot be even +concussed under a thousand; while if the noble Duke in the express +carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may be positively astounding. +</p> +<p> +This I certainly call hard—very hard. When you book a bet at +Newmarket you never have to consider the rank of your opponent, save as +regards his solvency. He may be a peer—he is very probably a +publican—it is perfectly immaterial to you; but not so here. The +company is positively staking against the incommensurable. They have no +means of knowing whether that large broad-shouldered man yonder is or is +not a royal duke; and when the telegraph announces a collision, it may +chance that the news has declared what will send every shareholder into +bankruptcy, or only graze them without hurting anybody. +</p> +<p> +We all know how a number of what are technically termed serious people +went to Exeter Hall to listen to the music of the ‘Traviata,’ what no +possible temptation would have induced them to hear within the walls of a +theatre. I will not question the propriety of a matter only to be settled +by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the words—for the +airs were sung—were the same, the hearers were not improbably in the +enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though they had gone for it to +the Queen’s Theatre. Now, may not these railway insurances be something of +the same kind? May it not be a means by which deans and canons and other +broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little gambling without “going in” + for Blind Hooky or Roulette? Regard for decorum would prevent their +sojourning at Homburg or Wiesbaden. They could not, of course, be seen +“punting” at the play-table at Ems; but here is a legitimate game which +all may join in, and where, certainly, the anxiety that is said to impart +the chief ecstasy to the gamester’s passion rises to the very highest It +is heads and tails for a smashing stake, and ought to interest the most +sluggish of mortals. +</p> +<p> +What a useful addition, then, would it be for one’s Bradshaw to have a +tabular view of the “odds” on the different lines, so that a speculative +individual, desiring to provide for his family, might know where to +address himself with best chance of an accident! One can imagine an +assurance company puffing its unparalleled advantages and unrivalled +opportunity, when four excursion trains were to start at five minutes’ +intervals, and the prospect of a smash was little short of a certainty. +“Great attraction! the late rains have injured the chief portion of the +line, so that a disaster is confidently looked for every hour. Make your +game, gentlemen—make your game; nothing received after the bell +rings.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. +</h2> +<p> +Anything more absurd than the late debate in the House on the best means +of suppressing intemperance it is very hard to imagine. First of all, in +the van, came the grievance to be redressed; and we had a statistical +statement of all the gallons of strong drink consumed—all the moneys +diverted from the legitimate uses of the family—all the debauchees +who rolled drunk through our streets, and all the offences directly +originating in this degrading vice. Now, what conceivable order of mind +could prompt a man to engage in such a laborious research? Who either +doubts the enormity of drunkenness or its frequency? It is a theme that we +hear of incessantly. The pulpit rings with it, the press proclaims it, the +judges declare it in all their charges, and a special class of lecturers +have converted it into a profession. None denied the existence of the +disease; what we craved was the cure. Some discrepancy of opinion +prevailed as to whether the vice was on the increase or the decrease. +Statistics were given, and, of course, statistics supported each +assertion. This, however, was a mere skirmish—the grand battle was, +How was drunkenness to be put down? +</p> +<p> +Mr Lawson’s plan was: If four-fifths of the ratepayers of any district +were agreed that no spirituous liquors should be sold there, that such +should become a law, and no licence for their sale should be issued. The +mover of this proposal, curiously enough, called this “bringing public +opinion to bear on the question.” What muddle of intelligence could +imagine this to be an exercise of public opinion I cannot imagine. Such, +however, is the plan. Drunkenness is to be repressed by making it +impossible. Did it never occur to the honourable gentleman, that all +legislative enactments whatever work not by enforcing what is good, but by +punishing what is evil? No law that ever was made would render people +honest and true to their engagements; but we arrive at a result not very +dissimilar by making dishonesty penal. +</p> +<p> +The Decalogue declares: “Thou shalt not commit a murder.” Human law +pronounces what will come of it if you do. It is, doubtless, very +imperfect legislation, but there is no help for it. We accept such cases, +however, as the best defences we can find for our social condition, never +for a moment presuming to think that we are rendering a vice impossible by +attaching to it a penalty. +</p> +<p> +Mr Lawson, however, says, There shall be no drunkenness, because there +shall be no liquor. Why not extend the principle—for it is a great +discovery—and declare that, wherever four-fifths of the ratepayers +of a town or borough are of opinion that ingratitude is a great offence to +morals and a stain to human nature, in that district where they reside +there shall be no benefits conferred, nor any act of kindly aid or +assistance rendered by one man to his neighbour? I have no doubt that, by +such legislation, you would put down ingratitude. We use acts in the moral +world pretty much as in the physical; and it is entirely by the +impossibility of committing the offence that this gentleman proposes to +prevent its occurrence. But, in the name of common sense, why do we +inveigh against monasteries and nunneries?—why are we so severe on a +system that substitutes restraint for reason, and instead of correction +supplies coercion? Surely this plan is based on exactly the same +principle. Would it, I ask, cure a man of lying—I mean the vice, not +the practice—to place him in a community where no party was +permitted to talk? +</p> +<p> +The example of the higher classes was somewhat ostentatiously paraded in +the debate, and members vied with each other in declaring how often they +dined out without meeting a drunkard in the company. This is very +gratifying and reassurring; but I am not aware that anybody ascribed the +happy change to the paucity of the decanters, and the difficulty of +getting the bottle; or whether it was that four-fifths of the party had +declared an embargo on the sherry, and realised the old proverb by +elevating necessity to the rank of virtue. +</p> +<p> +Let me ask, who ever imagined that the best way to render a soldier brave +in battle was to take care that he never saw an enemy, and only frequented +the society of Quakers? And yet this is precisely what Mr Lawson suggests. +If his system be true, what becomes of all moral discipline and all +self-restraint? It is not through my own convictions that I am sober; it +is through no sense of the degradation that pertains to drunkenness, and +the loss of social estimation that follows it, that I am temperate. It is +because four-fifths of the ratepayers declare that I shall have no drink +nearer than the next parish; and this reminds of another weak point in the +plan. +</p> +<p> +The Americans, who understand something of the evils of drink, on the +principle that made Doctor Panloss a good man, because he knew what +wickedness was, lately passed a law in Congress forbidding the use of +fermented liquors on board all the ships of war. It was one of those +sweeping pieces of legislation that men enact when driven to do something, +they know not exactly what, by the enormity of some great abuse. Now, I +have taken considerable pains to inquire how the plan operates, and what +success has waited on it. From every officer that I have questioned I have +received the same exact testimony: so long as the ships are at sea the men +only grumble at the privation; but once they touch port, and boats’ crews +are permitted to go ashore, drunkenness breaks out with tenfold violence. +For a while all real discipline is at an end; parties are despatched to +bring back defaulters, who themselves get reeling drunk; petty officers +are insulted, and scenes of violence enacted that give the unhappy +locality where they have landed the aspect of a town taken by assault and +given up to pillage. I am not now describing altogether from hearsay; I +have witnessed something of what I speak. +</p> +<p> +As drunkenness, when the ship was at sea, was the rarest of all events, +and the good conduct of the men when on shore was the great object to be +obtained, this system may be, so far as the navy is concerned, pronounced +a decided failure. Whatever may be said about the policy of sowing a man’s +wild oats, nobody, so far as I know, ever hinted that the crop should be +perennial. +</p> +<p> +Legislation can no more make men temperate than it can make them cleanly +or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would +make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a +crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to +this well-intentioned gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is +unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How is +it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the great +essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle man now +could no more be found than the Plesiosaurus. He belongs to a past totally +and essentially irrevocable. +</p> +<p> +And by what has this happy change been effected? Surely not by withdrawing +temptation. Not only have we an infinitely wider choice in fluids than our +forefathers, but they are served and ministered with appliances far more +tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the higher tone of society the +revolution is owing. Men saw that drunkenness was disgraceful: it rendered +society disorderly and riotous; it interfered with all real conversational +pleasure; it led to unmannerly excesses, and to quarrels. A higher +cultivation repudiated all these things; and even they who, so to say, +“liked their wine” too well, were slow to disparage themselves by an +indulgence which good taste declared to be ungentlemanlike. +</p> +<p> +Is it completely impossible to introduce some such sentiment as this into +other orders of society? We see it certainly in some foreign countries—why +not in our own? Radical orators are incessantly telling us of the mental +powers and the intellectual cultivation of the working-classes, and I am +well-disposed to believe there is much truth in what they say. Why not +then adapt, to men so highly civilised, some of those sentiments that sway +the classes more favoured of fortune? The French artisan would deem it a +disgrace to be drunk—so the Italian; even the German would only go +as far as a sort of beery bemuddlement that made him a more ideal +representative of the Vaterland: why must the Englishman, of necessity, be +the inferior in civilisation to these? I am not willing to believe the +task of such a reformation hopeless, though I am perfectly convinced that +no greater folly could be committed than to attempt it by an Act of +Parliament. +</p> +<p> +When legislation has led men to be agreeable in society, unassuming in +manners, and gentle in deportment, it may make them temperate in their +liquor, but not before. The thing cannot be done in committee, nor by a +vote of the House. It is only to be accomplished by the filtering process, +by which the good habits of a nation drop down and permeate the strata +beneath; so that, in course of time, the whole mass, leavened by the same +ingredients, becomes one as completely in sentiment as in interest. +“Four-fifths of the ratepayers” will not effect this. After all, Mr Lawson +is only a second-hand discoverer. His bill was a mere plagiarism from +beginning to end. The whole text of his argument was said and sung by poor +Curran, full fifty odd years ago:— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“My children, be chaste till you’re tempted; +While sober, be wise and discreet; +And humble your bodies with fasting +Whenever you’ve nothing to eat.” + </pre> +<p> +THE END. <br /><br /> +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornelius O’Dowd Upon Men And Women +And Other Things In General, by Charles Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O’DOWD UPON MEN *** + +***** This file should be named 22058-h.htm or 22058-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/5/22058/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General + Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 + +Author: Charles Lever + +Release Date: May 20, 2008 [EBook #22058] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN AND WOMEN AND OTHER THINGS IN GENERAL + +By Charles Lever + +Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine + +1864 + + + + +CONTENTS: + + Myself. + + A Friend Of Gioberts: Being A Reminiscence Of Seventeen Years Ago. + + Garibaldi's Worshippers. + + Something About Solferino And Ships. + + The Stranger At The Croce Di Malta. + + The Strange Man's Sorrow. + + Italian Law And Justice. + + The Organ Nuisance And Its Remedy. + + R. N. F. The Great Chevalier D'industrie Of Our Day. + + Garibaldi + + A New Investment. + + Italian Traits And Characteristics. + + The Decline Of Whist. + + One Of Our "Two Puzzles". + + A Masterly Inactivity. + + A New Hansard. + + Foreign Clubs. + + A Hint For C. S. Examiners. + + Of Some Old Dogs In Office. + + Decline Of The Drama. + + Pensions For Governors. + + A Grumble. + + Of Our Brothers Beyond The Border. + + The Rule Nisi. + + On Climbing Boys. + + Linguists + + The Old Conjurors And The New. + + Gambling For The Million. + + The Intoxicating Liquors Bill. + + + + +TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. + +My dear Anster, + +If you knew how often I have thought of you as I was writing this +book,--if you knew how there rose before my mind memories of long ago--of +those glorious evenings with all those fine spirits, to think of whom is +a triumph even with all its sadness,--and if you knew how I long to meet +once more the few soldiers who survive of that "old guard,"--you would +see how naturally I dedicate my volume to him who was the best of us. +Accept it, I beg you, as a token of recollection and regard from your +affectionate friend, + +CORNELIUS O'DOWD. + +Lago Maggiore, July 20,1864. + + + + +NOTICE. + +AMIABLE AND ACCOMPLISHED READER, + +As I have very little to say for myself that is not said in some of +my opening pages, there is no need that I should delay you on the +threshold. + +You will learn, if you take the trouble, by what course of events I came +to my present pursuit, converting myself into what a candid, but not +complimentary, friend has called "a diverting Vagabond." + +The fact was, I gave the world every reasonable opportunity of knowing +that they had a remarkable man amongst them, but, with a stupidity all +their own, they wouldn't see it; so that when the solicitor who once +gave me a brief died--I believe it was a softening of the brain--I +burned my wig and retired from the profession. + +Now, let people say what they may, it is by no means easy to invent a +new line of life; and even if you should, there are scores of people +ready to start up and seize on your discovery; and as I write these +lines I am by no means sure that to-morrow will not see some other +Cornelius O'Dowd inviting the public to a feast of wisdom and +life-knowledge, with perhaps a larger stock than my own of "things not +generally known." I will disparage no man's wares. There is, I feel +assured, a market for us all. My rivals, or my imitators, whichever you +like to call them, may prove superior to me; they maybe more ingenious, +more various, more witty, or more profound; but take my word for it, +bland Header, there is always something in the original tap, whether +the liquor be Harvey sauce or L.L. whisky, and such is mine. You are, in +coming to me, frequenting the old house; and if I could only descend to +it, I could print you more testimonials to success than Mr Morrison's +of the pills, or the other man of cod-liver oil, but I scorn to give the +names, imparted as they were in secret gratitude. One only trick of +the trade I will condescend to--it is to assure you that you had need +to beware of counterfeits, and that no O'Dowderies are genuine except +signed by me. + +My heart is broke with requests for my autograph. Will a sympathising +public accept the above--which, of course, will be immediately +photographed. + + + + +CORNELIUS O'DOWD + + + + +MYSELF. + +Bland Reader,--If you ever look into the Irish papers--and I hope +you are not so exclusive regarding them as is Mr Cobden with the +'Times'--you will see that, under the title, "Landed Estates Court, +County Mayo," Judge Dobbs has just sold the town and lands of +Kilmuray-nabachlish, Ballaghy, and Gregnaslattery, the property of +Cornelius O'Dowd, Esq. of Dowd's Folly, in the same county. + +Now the above-recited lands, measuring seven hundred and fourteen acres, +two roods, and eleven perches, statute measure, were mine, and I am the +Cornelius O'Dowd, Esq., referred to in the same paragraph. + +Though it is perfectly true that, what between mortgages, settlement +claims, and bonds, neither my father nor myself owned these lands any +more than we did the island of Jamaica, it was a great blow to me to be +sold out; for, somehow or other, one can live a long time in Ireland on +parchment--I mean on the mere documents of an estate that has long +since passed away; but if you come once to an open sale and Judge Dobbs, +there's an end of you, and you'll not get credit for a pair of shoes the +day after. + +My present reason for addressing you does not require that I should go +into my family history, or mention more of myself than that I was called +to the Bar in '42; that I stood an unsuccessful election for Athlone; +that I served as a captain in the West Coast Rifles; that I married a +young lady of great personal attractions; and completed my misfortunes +by taking the chairmanship of the Vichnasehneshee silver mines, that +very soon left me with nothing but copper in my own pocket, and sent me +to Judge Dobbs and his Court on the Inns Quay. + +Like the rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would +"do something" for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, +and I have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord +Clarendon's day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly +with me, none said, "O'Dowd, we must do something for you;" and if it +was to rain commissionerships in lunacy, or prison inspectorships, I +don't believe one would fall upon C. O'D. I never knew rightly how it +was, but though I was always liked at the Bar mess, and made much of on +circuit, I never got a brief. People were constantly saying to me, "Con, +if you were to do this, that, or t'other," you'd make a hit; but it +was always conditional on my being somewhere, or doing something that I +never had attempted before. + +It was clear, if I was the right man, I wasn't in the right place; and +this was all the more provoking, because, let me do what I would, some +one was sure to exclaim, "Con, my boy, don't try that; it is certainly +not your line." "What a capital agent for a new assurance company you'd +be!" "What a success you'd have had on the stage! You'd have played Sir +Lucius better than any living actor. Why don't you go on the boards? Why +not start a penny newspaper? Why not give readings?" I wonder why they +didn't tell me to turn organist or a painter in oils. + +"You're always telling us how much you know of the world, Mr O'Dowd," +said my wife; "I wish you could turn the knowledge to some account." + +This was scarcely generous, to say the least of it. + +Mrs O'D. knew well that I was vain of the quality--that I regarded it +as a sort of specialty. In fact, deeming, with the poet, that the proper +study of mankind was man, I had devoted a larger share of my life to the +inquiry than quite consisted with professional advancement; and while +others pored over their Blackstone, I was "doing Baden;" and instead of +term reports and Crown cases, I was diverting myself in the Oberland or +on the Lago Maggiore. + +"And with all your great knowledge of life," continued she, "I don't +exactly see what it has done for you." + +Now, Mrs O'Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn't waste my +time in arguing with her--I didn't crush her, as I might, by telling +her that the very highest and noblest of a man's acquirements are, _ipso +facto_, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all +classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that +Greek and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar +fractions and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, +Mrs O'D. would have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the +rule-of-three against Sophocles and "all his works." I simply replied, +with that dignity which is natural to me, "I _am_ proud of my knowledge +of life; I do recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture +that makes up human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to +advertise my discovery for sale, like Holloway's Pills or somebody's +cod-liver oil." "Perhaps you knew nobody would buy it," cried she, +and flounced out of the room, the bang of the door being one of the +"epigrams in action" wives are skilled in. + +Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself +to those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of +their own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure +in all it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering +delighted over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, +for years, imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been +my gallery, with all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm +colouring, and its cold tints. + +It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every +"handling," and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original. +"And can it be possible," cried I aloud, "that while picture-dealers +revel in fortune--fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured +canvass--that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist--I, +who read men as I read a French comedy--that I should be obliged to deny +myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, and +that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me than +mere physic?" + +I do not--I will not--I cannot, believe it. No class of persons could +be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich argosy +that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the +Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no +insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no +dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these +I purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the +possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into +Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that +I mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more +dearly than I intend to dispose of it. _Haud ignarus mali_; I am willing +to tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. "Don't +tell me of your successes," said a great physician to his colleague, +"tell me of your blunders; tell me of the people you've killed." I am +ready to do this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and +more, I will make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may +attach to an absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may +subject me to laughter. + +You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but +what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my +wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you +that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or +three in America; that I have been everywhere--eaten of everything--seen +everything. There's not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn't +grin a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Freres to the +Wilde Mann doesn't trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers +speak up when I stroll into the Chamber, and _prima donnas_ soar above +the orchestra, and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit. + +I don't like--I declare to you I do not like--saying these things; it +smacks of vanity. Now for my plan. I purpose to put these my gifts at +your disposal The year before us will doubtless be an eventful one. +What between Danes, Poles, and Italians, there must be a row somewhere. +The French are very eager for war; and the Austrians, as Paddy +says, "are blue-moulded for want of a beatin'." There will be grand +"battle-pieces" to paint; but, better than these, portraits, groups, +"tableaux de genre"--Teniers bits, too, at the porch of an ale-house, +and warm little interiors, in the style of Mieris. I shall be +instructive at times--very instructive; and whenever I am very nice +and dull, be assured that I'm "full of information, and know my subject +thoroughly." + +As "your own correspondent," I am free to go wherever I please. I have +left Mrs O'D. in Ireland, and I revel in an Arcadian liberty. These +are all my credentials; and if with their aid I can furnish you any +amusement as to the goings-on of the world and its wife, or the doings +of that amiable couple in politics, books, theatres, or socialities, +I seek for nothing more congenial to my taste, nor more adapted to my +nature, as a bashful Irishman. + +If I will not often obtrude, I will not altogether avoid, my personal +experiences; for there is this to be said, that no testimony is worth +much unless we know something of the temper, the tastes, and the +character of the witness. We have all heard, for instance, of the +gentleman who couldn't laugh at Munden's drolleries on the stage for +thinking of a debt of ten pounds that the actor owed him: and this same +spirit has a great deal to do--far more than we like to own--with +our estimate of foreign countries. It is so hard to speak well of the +climate where we had that horrible rheumatism, or laud the honesty of a +people when we think of that rascally scoundrel of the Hotel d'Odessa. +For these reasons I mean to come into the witness-box occasionally, and +give you frankly, not merely my opinions, but the way they were come by. +I don't affect to be superior to prejudices; I have as many of these as +a porcupine has bristles. There's all the egotism I mean to inflict on +you, unless it comes under the guise of an incident--"a circumstance +which really occurred to the author"--and now, _en route_. + +I wonder am I right in thinking that the present race of travelling +English know less about the Continent and foreigners generally than +their predecessors of, say, five-and-twenty years ago. Railroads and +rapid travelling might be one cause; another is, that English is now +more generally spoken by all foreigners than formerly; and it may be +taken as a maxim, that nothing was ever asked or answered in broken +phraseology that was worth the hearing. People with a limited knowledge +of a strange language do not say what they _wish_, but what they _can_; +and there is no name for the helplessness of him who is tied up in his +preter-pluperfect tense. Now we English are not linguists; even our +diplomatists are remarkable for their little proficiency in French. +I'm not sure that we don't benefit by this in the long-run. "Reden ist +silber, aber Schweigen ist gold"--"Speech is silver, but silence is +gold," says the German adage; and what a deal of wisdom have I seen +attributed to a man who was posed by his declensions into a listener! +One of the only countrymen of my own who has made a great career lately +in public life is not a little indebted to deafness for it. He was so +unlike those rash, impetuous, impatient Irish, who _would_ interrupt--he +listened, or seemed to listen, and he even smiled at the sarcasms that +he did not hear. + +Listening, if we did but know it, sits more gracefully on us than +speech, when that speech involves the denial of genders, and the utter +confusion of all cases and tenses. + +Next to holding their tongues, there's another thing I wish you English +would do abroad, which is, to dress like sane and responsible people. +Men are simply absurd; but the women, with their ill-behaved hoops and +short petticoats, are positively indecent; but the greatest of all +their travelling offences is the proneness to form acquaintance at +_tables-d'hote_. + +It is, first of all, a rank indiscretion for any but men to dine at +these places. They are almost, as a rule, the resort of all that is +disreputable in both sexes. You are sure to eat badly, and in the very +worst of company. My warning is, however, meant for my countrywomen +only: men can, or at least ought, to take care of themselves. As for +myself, don't be shocked; but I do like doubtful company--that is, I am +immensely interested by all that class of people which the world calls +adventurers, whether the same be railroad speculators, fortune-hunters, +discoverers of inexhaustible mines, or Garibaldians. Your respectable +man, with a pocket-book well stored with his circular notes, and his +passport in order, is as uninteresting as a "Treckshuyt" on a Dutch +canal; but your "martyr to circumstance" is like a smart felucca in a +strong Levanter; and you can watch his course--how he shakes out his +reefs or shortens sail--how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his +colours--with an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of +cleverness--what stores of practical ability--were lost to the world +in these out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently, +play every game well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot, +especially with the pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass +of qualities that win success! and, what often is harder, win goodwill +in life! There they are, by some unhappy twist in their natures, +preferring the precarious existence of the race-course or the +billiard-table; while others, with about a tithe of their talents, are +high in place and power. I met one of these men to-day, and a strong +specimen of the class, well dressed, well whiskered, very quiet in +manner, almost subdued in tone, but with a slight restlessness in his +eye that was very significant. We found ourselves at table, over +our coffee, when the others had left, and fell into conversation. He +declined my offered cigar with much courtesy, preferring to smoke +little cigarettes of his own making; and really the manufacture was very +adroit, and, in its way, a study of the maker's habits. We talked over +the usual topics--the bad dinner we had just eaten, the strange-looking +company, the discomfort of the hotel generally, and suchlike. + +"Have we not met before?" asked he, after a pause. "If I don't mistake, +we dined together aboard of Leslie's yacht, the Fawn." + +I shook my head. "Only knew Sir Francis Leslie by name; never saw the +Fawn." + +The shot failed, but there was no recoil in his gun, and he merely bowed +a half apology. + +"A yacht is a mistake," added he, after another interval. "One is +obliged to take, not the men one wants, but the fellows who can bear the +sea. Leslie, for instance, had such a set that I left him at Messina. +Strange enough, they took us for pirates there." + +"For pirates!" + +"Yes. There were three fishing-boats--what they call _Bilancelle_--some +fifteen or sixteen miles out at sea, and when they saw us coming along +with all canvass set, they hauled up their nets and ran with all speed +for shore. Rather absurd, wasn't it? but, as I told Leslie about his +friends, 'the blunder wasn't so great after all; there was only a vowel +between Raffs and Riffs.'" + +The disparagement of "questionable people" is such an old device of +adventurers, that I was really surprised such a master of his art as +my present friend would condescend to it. It belonged altogether to an +inferior practitioner; and, indeed, he quickly saw the effect it had +produced upon me, as he said, "Not that I care a straw for the fellows I +associate with; my theory is, a gentleman can know any one." + +Richard was himself again as he uttered this speech, lying well back +in his chair, and sending a thin cloud of incense from the angle of his +mouth. + +"What snobs they were in Brummel's day, for instance, always asking if +this or that man was fit to be known! Why, sir, it was the very fellows +they tabooed were the cream of the set; 'it was the cards they threw out +were the trumps.'" + +The illustration came so pat that he smiled as he perceived by a twinkle +of my eye that I appreciated it. + +"My father," continued he, "knew Brummel well, and he told me that his +grand defect was a want of personal courage--the very quality, of all +others, his career required. His impertinences always broke down when +brought to this test. I remember an instance he mentioned. + +"Amongst the company that frequented Carlton House was a certain old +Admiral P------, whom the Prince was fond of inviting, though he did not +possess a single agreeable quality, or any one convivial gift, except a +great power of drinking the very strongest port without its producing +the slightest show of effect upon him. + +"One night Brummel, evidently bent on testing the old sailor's head, +seated himself next him, making it his business to pass the decanters as +briskly as he could. The admiral asked nothing better; filled and drank +bumpers. Not content with this legitimate test, Brummel watched his +opportunity when the admiral's head was turned, and filled his glass +up to the brim. Four or five times was the trick repeated, and with +success; when at last the admiral, turning quickly around, caught him in +the very act, with the decanter still in his hand. Fixing his eyes +upon him with the fierceness of a tiger, the old man said, 'Drink it, +sir--drink it!' and so terrified was Brummel by the manner and the look +that he raised the glass to his lips and drained it, while all at the +table were convulsed with laughter." + +The Brummel school--that is, the primrose-glove adventurers--were a very +different order of men from the present-day fellows, who take a turn +in Circassia or China, or a campaign with Garibaldi; and who, with all +their defects, are men of mettle and pluck and daring. Of these latter I +found my new acquaintance to be one. + +He sketched off the early part of the "expedition" graphically enough +for me, showing the disorder and indiscipline natural to a force +where every nationality of Europe was represented, and not by its most +favourable types. + +"I had an Irish servant," said he, "whose blunders would fill a volume. +His prevailing impression, perhaps not ill-founded on the whole, was, +that we all had come out for pillage; and while a certain reserve +withheld most of us from avowing this fact, he spoke of it openly and +freely, expatiating admiringly on Captain This and Major That, who +had done a fine stroke of work in such a store, or such another +country-house. As for his blunders, they never ceased. I was myself the +victim of an absurd one. On the march from Melazzo I got a severe +strain in the chest by my horse falling and rolling over me. No bone +was broken, but I was much bruised, and a considerable extravasation of +blood took place under the skin. Of course I could not move, and I was +provided with a sort of litter, and slung between two mules. The +doctor prescribed a strong dose of laudanum, which set me to sleep, and +despatched Peter back to Melazzo with an order for a certain ointment, +which he was to bring without delay, as the case was imminent; this was +impressed upon him, as the fellow was much given to wandering off, when +sent of a message, after adventures of his own. + +"Fully convinced that I was in danger, away went Peter, very sad about +me, but even more distressed lest he should forget what he was sent for. +He kept repeating the words over and over as he went, till they became +by mere repetition something perfectly incomprehensible, so that when +he reached Melazzo nobody could make head or tail of his message. Group +after group gathered about and interrogated him, and at last, by means +of pantomime, discovered that his master was very ill. Signs were made +to inquire if bleeding was required, or if it was a case for amputation, +but he still shook his head in negative. 'Is he dying?' asked one, +making a gesture to indicate lying down. Peter assented. 'Oh, then it +is the _unzione estrema_ he wants!' 'That's it,' cried Peter, +joyfully--'unzione it is.' Two priests were speedily found and +despatched; and I awoke out of a sound sleep under a tree to see three +lighted candles on each side of me, and two priests in full vestments +standing at my feet and gabbling away in a droning sort of voice, +while Peter blubbered and wrung his hands unceasingly. A jolly burst +of laughter from me soon dispelled the whole illusion, and Peter had to +hide himself for shame for a week after." + +"What became of the fellow--was he killed in the campaign?" + +"Killed! nothing of the kind; he rose to be an officer, served on +Nullo's staff, and is at this very hour in Poland, and, if I mistake +not, a major." + +"Men of this stamp make occasionally great careers," said I, carelessly. + +"No, sir," replied he, very gravely. "To do anything really brilliant, +the adventurer must have been a gentleman at one time or other: the +common fellow stops short at petty larcenies; the man of good blood +always goes in for the mint." + +"There was, then," asked I, "a good deal of what the Yankees call +'pocketing' in that campaign of Garibaldi's?" + +"Less than one might suppose. Have you not occasionally seen men at a +dinner-party pass this and refuse that, waiting for the haunch, or the +pheasant, or the blackcock that they are certain is coming, when all +of a sudden the jellies and ices make their appearance, and the curtain +falls? So it was with many of us; we were all waiting for Rome, and +licking our lips for the Vatican and the Cardinals' palaces, when in +came the Piedmontese and finished the entertainment. If I meet you here +to-morrow, I can tell you more about this;" and so saying he arose, gave +me an easy nod, and strolled away. + +"Who is that most agreeable gentleman who took his coffee with me?" +asked I of the waiter as I entered the _salle_. + +"It's the Generale Inglese, who served with Garibaldi." + +"And his name?" + +"Ah, _per bacco!_ I never heard his name--Garibaldi calls him Giorgio, +and the ladies who call here to take him out to drive now and then +always say Giorgino--not that he's so very small, for all that." + +My Garibaldian friend failed in his appointment with me this morning. +We were to have gone together to a gallery, or a collection of ancient +armour, or something of this sort, but he probably saw, as your clever +adventurer _will_ see, with half an eye, that I could be no use +to him--that I was a wayfarer like himself on life's highroad; and +prudently turned round on his side and went to sleep again. + +There is no quality so distinctive in this sort of man or woman--for +adventurer has its feminine--as the rapid intuition with which he seizes +on all available people, and throws aside all the unprofitable ones. A +money-changer detecting a light napoleon is nothing to it. What are the +traits by which they guide their judgment--what the tests by which they +try humanity, I do not know, but that they do read a stranger at first +sight is indisputable. That he found out Cornelius O'Dowd wasn't a +member of the British Cabinet, or a junior partner in Baring's, was, you +may sneeringly conjecture, no remarkable evidence of acuteness. But why +should he discover the fact--fact it is--that he'd never be one penny +the richer by knowing me, and that intercourse with me was about as +profitable as playing a match at billiards "for the table"? + +Say what people will against roguery and cheating, rail as they may at +the rapacity and rascality one meets with, I declare and protest, after +a good deal of experience, that the world is a very poor world to +him who is not the mark of some roguery! When you are too poor to be +cheated, you are too insignificant to be cherished; and the man that is +not worth humbugging isn't very far from bankruptcy. + +It gave me a sort of shock, therefore, when I saw that my friend took +this view of me, and I strolled down moodily enough to the Chamber of +Deputies. Turin is a dreary city for a lounger; even a resident finds +that he must serve a seven years' apprenticeship before he gets any +footing in its stiff ungenial society--for of all Italians, nothing +socially is less graceful than a Piedmontese. They have none of the +courteous civility, none of the urbane gentleness of the peninsular +Italians. They are cold, reserved, proud, and eminently awkward; not the +less so, perhaps, that their habitual tongue is the very vilest jargon +that ever disfigured a human mouth. Of course this is an efficient +barrier against intercourse with strangers; and though French is spoken +in society, it bears about the same relation to that language at Paris, +as what is called pigeon-English at Hong-Kong does to the tongue in use +in Belgravia. + +When I reached the Palazzo Carignan, as the Chamber is called, the +_seance_ was nearly over, and a scene of considerable uproar prevailed. +There had been a somewhat sharp altercation between General Bixio and +the "Left," and M. Mordini had repeatedly appealed to the President to +make the General recall some offensive epithets he had bestowed on the +"party of movement." There were the usual cries and gesticulations, +the shouts of derision, the gestures of menace; and, above all, the +tinkle-tinkle of the Presidents bell, which was no more minded than the +summons for a waiter in an Irish inn; and on they went in this hopeless +way, till some one, I don't know why, cried out, "That's enough--we are +satisfied;" by which it seemed that somebody had apologised, but for +what, or how, or to whom, I have not the very vaguest conception. + +With all their depreciation of France, the Italians are the most +persistent imitators of Frenchmen, and the Chamber was exactly a copy of +the French Chamber in the old Louis Philippe days--all violence, noise, +sensational intensity, and excitement. + +I have often heard public speakers mention the difficulty of adjusting +the voice to the size of a room in which they found themselves for the +first time, and the remark occurred to me as figuratively displaying one +of the difficulties of Italian public men. The speakers in reality never +clearly knew how far their words were to carry--whether they spoke to +the Chamber or to the Country. + +Is there or is there not a public opinion in Italy? Can the public +speaker direct his words over the heads of his immediate surrounders +to countless thousands beyond them? If he cannot, Parliament is but a +debating-club, with the disadvantage of not being able to select the +subjects for discussion. + +The glow of patriotism is never rightly warm, nor is the metal of party +truly malleable, without the strong blast of a public opinion. + +The Turin Chamber has no echo in the country; and, so far as I see, +the Italians are far more eager to learn what is said in the French +Parliament than in their own. + +I remember an old waiter at the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin, who got a +prize in the lottery and retired into private life, but who never could +hear a bell ring without crying out, "Coming, sir." The Italians remind +me greatly of him: they have had such a terrible time of flunkeyism, +that they start at every summons, no matter what hand be on the +bell-rope. + +To be sure the French did bully them awfully in the last war. Never was +an alliance more dearly paid for. We ourselves are not a very compliant +or conciliating race, but we can remember what it cost us to submit to +French insolence and pretension in the Crimea; and yet we did submit to +it, not always with a good grace, but in some fashion or other. + +Here comes my Garibaldino again, and with a proposal to go down to Genoa +and look at the Italian fleet. I don't suppose that either of us know +much of the subject; and indeed I feel, in my ignorance, that I might be +a senior Lord of the Admiralty--but that is only another reason for +the inquiry. "One is nothing," says Mr Puff, "if he ain't critical" So +Heaven help the Italian navy under the conjoint commentaries of myself +and my friend! Meanwhile, and before we start, one word more of Turin. + + + + +A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. + +Here I am at the "Feder" in Turin--as dirty a hotel, be it said +passingly, as you'll find out of Ireland, and seventeen long years it +is since I saw it first. Italy has changed a good deal in the +meanwhile--changed rulers, landmarks, systems, and ideas; not so my +old acquaintance, the Feder! There's the dirty waiter flourishing his +dirtier napkin; and there's the long low-ceilinged _table-d'hote_ room, +stuffy and smoky, and suffocating as ever; and there are the little +grinning coteries of threes and fours round small tables soaking their +rolls in chocolate, and puffing their "Cavours," with faces as innocent +of soap as they were before the war of the liberation. After all, +perhaps, I'd have no objection if some friend would cry out, "Why, Con, +my boy, you don't look a day older than when I saw you here in '46, I +think! I protest you have not changed in the least. What _elixir vitae_ +have you swallowed, old fellow? Not a wrinkle, nor a grey hair," and so +on. And yet seventeen years taken out of the working part of a man's +life--that period that corresponds with the interval between after +breakfast, we'll say, and an hour before dinner--makes a great gap in +existence; for I did very little as a boy, being not an early riser, +perhaps, and now, in the evening of my days, I have got a theory that a +man ought to dine early and never work after it. Though I'm half +ashamed, on so short an acquaintance with my reader, to mention a +personal incident, I can scarcely avoid--indeed I cannot avoid--relating +a circumstance connected with my first visit to the "Hotel Feder." + +I was newly married when I came abroad for a short wedding-tour. The +world at that time required new-married people to lay in a small stock +of Continental notions, to assist their connubiality and enable them to +wear the yoke with the graceful ease of foreigners; and so Mrs O'D. and +I started with one heart, one passport, and--what's not so pleasant--one +hundred pounds, to comply with this ordinance. Of course, once over the +border--once in France--it was enough. So we took up our abode in a +very unpretending little hotel of Boulogne-sur-Mer called "La Cour de +Madrid," where we boarded for the moderate sum of eleven francs fifty +centimes per diem--the odd fifty being saved by my wife not taking the +post-prandial cup of coffee and rum. + +There was not much to see at Boulogne, and we soon saw it. For a week or +so Mrs O'D. used to go out muffled like one of the Sultan's five hundred +wives, protesting that she'd surely be recognised; but she grew out of +the delusion at last, and discovered that our residence at the Cour de +Madrid as effectually screened us from all remark or all inquiry as if +we had taken up our abode in the Catacombs. + +Now when one has got a large stock of any commodity on hand--I don't +care what it is--there's nothing so provoking as not to find a market. +Mrs O'D.'s investment was bashfulness. She was determined to be the +most timid, startled, modest, and blushing creature that ever wore +orange-flowers; and yet there was not a man, woman, or child in the +whole town that cared to know whether the act for which she left England +was a matrimony or a murder. + +"Don't you hate this place, Cornelius?"--she never called me Con in the +honeymoon. "Isn't it the dullest, dreariest hole you have ever been in?" + +"Not with you." + +"Then don't yawn when you say so. I abhor it. It's dirty, it's vulgar, +it's dear." + +"No, no. It ain't dear, my love; don't say, dear." + +"Billiards perhaps, and filthy cigars, and that greenish +bitter--anisette, I think they call it--are cheap enough, perhaps; but +these are all luxuries I can't share in." + +Here was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand that presaged the first +connubial hurricane. A married friend--one of much experience and +long-suffering--had warned me of this, saying, "Don't fancy you'll +escape, old fellow; but do the way the Ministry do about Turkey--put the +evil day off; diplomatise, promise, cajole, threaten a bit if needs be, +but postpone;" and, strong with these precepts, I negotiated, as the +phrase is, and, with a dash of reckless liberality that I tremble at now +as I record it, I said, "You've only to say where--nothing but where +to, and I'll take you--up the Rhine, down the Danube, Egypt, the +Cataracts------" + +"I don't want to go so far," said she, dryly. "Italy will do." + +This was a stunner. I hoped the impossible would have stopped her, but +she caught at the practicable, and foiled me. + +"There's only one objection," said I, musing. + +"And what may that be? Not money, I hope." + +"Heaven forbid--no. It's the language. We get on here tolerably well, +for the waiter speaks broken English; but in Italy, dearest, English is +unknown." + +"Let us learn Italian, then. My aunt Groves said I had a remarkable +talent for languages." + +I groaned inwardly at this, for the same aunt Groves had vouched for +a sum of seventeen hundred and odd pounds as her niece's fortune, but +which was so beautifully "tied up," as they called it, that neither +Chancellor nor Master were ever equal to the task of untying it. + +"Of course, dearest, let us learn Italian;" and I thought how I'd crush +a junior counsel some day with a smashing bit of Dante. + +We started that same night--travelled on day after day--crossed +Mont Cenis in a snow-storm, and reached the Feder as wayworn and +wretched-looking a pair as ever travelled on an errand of bliss and +beatitude. + +"In for a penny" is very Irish philosophy, but I can't help that; so I +wrote to my brother Peter to sell out another hundred for me out of the +"Threes," saying "dear Paulina's health required a little change to a +milder climate" (it was snowing when I wrote, and the thermometer over +the chimneypiece at 9 deg. Reaumur, with windows that wouldn't shut, and a +marble floor without carpet)--"that the balmy air of Italy" (my teeth +chattered as I set it down) "would soon restore her; and indeed already +she seemed to feel the change." That she did, for she was crouching over +a pan of charcoal ashes, with a railroad wrapper over her shoulders. + +It's no use going over what is in every one's experience on first coming +south of the Alps--the daily, hourly difficulty of not believing that +you have taken a wrong road and got into Siberia; and strangest of +all it is to see how little the natives think of it. I declare I often +thought soap must be a great refrigerant, and I wish some chemist would +inquire into the matter. + +"Are we ever to begin this blessed language?" said Mrs O'D. to me, after +four days of close arrest--snow still falling and the thermometer going +daily down, down, lower and lower. Now I had made inquiries the day +before from the landlord, and learned that he knew of a most competent +person, not exactly a regular teacher who would insist upon our going +to work in school fashion, but a man of sense and a gentleman--indeed, +a person of rank and title, with whom the world had gone somewhat badly, +and who was at that very moment suffering for his political opinions, +far in advance, as they were, of those of his age. + +"He's a friend of Gioberti," whispered the landlord in my ear, while his +features became animated with the most intense significance. Now, I +had never so much as heard of Gioberti, but I felt it would be a +deep disgrace to confess it, and so I only exclaimed, with an air of +half-incredulity, "Indeed!" + +"As true as I'm here," replied he. "He usually drops in about noon to +read the 'Opinione,' and, if you permit, I'll send him up to you. His +name is Count Annibale Castrocaro." + +I hastened forthwith to Mrs O'D., to apprise her of the honour that +awaited us; repeating, a little _in extenso_, all that the host had +said, and finishing with the stunning announcement, "and a friend of +Gio-berti." Mrs O'Dowd never flinched under the shock, and, too proud to +own her ignorance, she pertly remarked, "I don't think the more of him +for that." + +I felt that she had beat me, and I sat down abashed and humiliated. +Meanwhile Mrs O'D. retired to make some change of dress; but, +reappearing after a while in her smartest morning toilette, and a very +coquettish little cap, with cherry-coloured ribbons, I saw what the word +Count had done at once. + +Just as the clock struck twelve, the waiter flung wide the double doors +of our room, and announced, as pompously as though for royalty, "II +Signor Conte di Castrocaro," and there entered a tall man slightly +stooping in the shoulders, with a profusion of the very blackest hair +on his neck and shoulders, his age anything from thirty-five to +forty-eight, and his dress a shabby blue surtout, buttoned to the throat +and reaching below the knees. He bowed and slid, and bowed again, till +he came opposite where my wife sat, and then, with rather a dramatic +sort of grace, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. She +reddened a little, but I saw she wasn't displeased with the air of +homage that accompanied the ceremony, and she begged him to be seated. + +I own I was disappointed with the Count, his hair was so greasy, and +his hands so dirty, and his general get-up so uncared for; but Mrs O'D. +talked away with him very pleasantly, and he replied in his own broken +English, making little grimaces and smiles and gestures, and some very +tender glances, do duty where his parts of speech failed him. In fact, I +watched him as a sort of psychological phenomenon, and I arrived at the +conclusion that this friend of Gioberti's was a very clever artist. + +All was speedily settled for the lessons--hour, terms, and mode of +instruction. It was to be entirely conversational, with a little +theme-writing, no getting by heart, no irregular verbs, no declensions, +no genders. I did beg hard for a little grammar, but he wouldn't hear of +it. It was against his "system," and so I gave in. + +We began the next day, but the Count ignored me altogether, directing +almost all his attentions to Mrs O'D.; and as I had already some small +knowledge of the elementary part of the language, I was just as well +pleased that she should come up, as it were, to my level. From this +cause I often walked off before the lesson was over, and sometimes, +indeed, I skulked it altogether, finding the system, as well as +Gioberti's friend, to be an unconscionable bore. Mrs O'D., on the +contrary, displayed an industry I never believed her to possess, and +would pass whole evenings over her exercises, which often covered +several sheets of letter-paper. + +We had now been about five weeks in Turin, when my brother wrote to +request I would come back as speedily as I could, that a case in which +I held a brief was high in the cause-list, and would be tried very early +in the session. I own I was not sorry at the recall. I detested the +dreary life I was leading. I hated Turin and its bad feeding and bad +theatres, its rough wines and its rougher inhabitants. + +"Did you tell the Count we are off on Saturday?" asked I of Mrs O'D. + +"Yes," said she, dryly. + +"I suppose he's inconsolable," said I, with a sneer. + +"He's very sorry we're going, if you mean that, Mr O'Dowd; and so am I +too." + +"Well, so am not I; and you may call me a Dutchman if you catch me here +again." + +"The Count hopes you will permit him to see you. He asked this morning +whether he might call on you about four o'clock." + +"Yes, I'll see him with sincere pleasure for once," I cried; "since it +is to say good-bye to him." + +I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count +was announced and shown in. "Excuse me, Count," said I, "for receiving +you so informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to +England, and no time to spare." + +"I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as +it is," said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never +observed in him before. + +"Well, sir," said I, stiffly; "I am at your orders." + +It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to +own that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper +to relate what took place. I can but give the substance of our +conversation. It is not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this +purport:--The Count had come to inform me that, without any intention or +endeavour on his part, he had gained Mrs O'Dowd's affections and won her +heart! Yes, much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting +opposite to me at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was +apologising for having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, +he was most circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one +side, and that he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself +as became a Gran' Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that +might mean. + +My amazement--I might almost call it my stupefaction--at the +unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to +him without an effort at interruption. + +"I have come to you, therefore, to-day," said he, "to give up her +letters." + +"Her letters!" exclaimed I; "and she has written to you!" + +"Twenty-three times in all," said he, calmly, as he drew a large black +pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. +"The earlier ones are less interesting," said he, turning them over. "It +is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she +commences to call me 'Caro Animale'--she meant to say Annibale, but, +poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger--'Animale Mio'--the same +error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, 'Diletto del mio cuore, quando +non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il mio +Tiranno'--that was _you_." + +I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought +he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. +I saw that Gioberti's friend had his wits about him, and resumed the +conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in +my wife's handwriting. + +"Very true," said he; "these, as you will perceive by the official +stamp, are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura--the originals +are safe." + +"And with what object," asked I, gasping--"safe for what?" + +"For you, lllustrissimo," said he, bowing, "when you pay me two thousand +francs for them." + +"I'll knock your brains out first," said I, with another clutch at the +poker, but the muzzle of the pistol was now directly in front of me. + +"I am moderate in my demands, signor," said he, quietly; "there are men +in my position would ask you twenty thousand; but I am a galantuomo----" + +"And the friend of Gioberti," added I, with a sneer. + +"Precisely so," said he, bowing with much grace. + +I will not weary you, dear reader, with my struggles--conflicts that +almost cost me a seizure on the brain--but hasten to the result. I beat +down the noble Count's demand to one-half and for a thousand francs +I possessed myself of the fatal originals, written unquestionably and +indisputably by my wife's hand; and then, giving the Count a final piece +of advice, never to let me see more of him, I hurried off to Mrs O'Dowd. + +She was out paying some bills, and only arrived a few minutes before +dinner-hour. + +"I want you, madam, for a moment here," said I, with something of +Othello, in the last act, in my voice and demeanour. + +"I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O'Dowd," said +she, snappishly. + +"No, madam; you may probably find that you'll need them both at the end +of our interview." + +"What do you mean, sir?" asked she, haughtily. + +"This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam," said I, with +the tone of the avenging angel. "Do you know these? are these in your +hand? Deny it if you can." + +"Why should I deny it? Of course they're mine." + +"And you wrote this, and this, and this?" cried I, almost in a scream, +as I shook forth one after another of the letters. + +"Don't you know I did?" said she, as hotly; "and nothing beyond a venial +mistake in one of them!" + +"A what, woman? a what?" + +"A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up +half the night at my exercises?" + +"Exercises!" + +"Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies +of them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day--here +are the rough ones;" and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of +papers all scrawled over and blotted. "And now, sir, once more, what do +you mean?" + +I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. "Where +does that Count Castrocaro live?" I asked. + +"Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left +Turin--started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He's a Gran' +Galantuomo, sir," added he, as I stood stupefied. + +"I am aware of that," said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my +packing. + +"Did you settle with the Count?" asked my wife at the door. + +"Yes," said I, with my head buried in my trunk. + +"And he was perfectly satisfied?" + +"Of course he was--he has every reason to be so." + +"I am glad of it," said she, moving away--"he had a deal of trouble with +those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him." I could have +told what they cost _me_; but I never did, till the present moment. + +I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what +abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the +evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill +before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. +All these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their +bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with +composure of this friend of Gioberti. + +Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he +gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, "and he'd give ten more to any one +who'd tell him what to do with it." I strongly suspect this is pretty +much the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is--at +least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, +where is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack? + +The very last thing Italians have in their minds is a war with England. +If we have not done them any great or efficient service, we have always +spoken civilly of them, and bade them a God-speed. But, besides a +certain goodwill that they feel for us, they entertain--as a nation with +a very extended and ill-protected coast-line ought--a considerable dread +of a maritime power that could close every port they possess, and lay +some very important towns in ashes. + +Now, it is exactly by the possession of a fleet that, in any future +war between England and France, these people may be obliged to ally +themselves to France. The French will want them in the Mediterranean, +and they cannot refuse when called on. + +Count Cavour always kept telling our Foreign Office, "A strong Italy is +the best thing in the world for you. A strong Italy is the surest of all +barriers against France." There may be some truth in the assertion if +Italy could spring at once--Minerva fashion--all armed and ready for +combat, and stand out as a first-rate power in Europe; but to do this +requires years of preparation, long years too; and it is precisely +in these years of interval that France can become all-dominant in +Italy--the master, and the not very merciful master, of her destinies +in everything. France has the guardianship of Italy--with this addition, +that she can make the minority last as long as she pleases. + +Perhaps my Garibaldian companion has impregnated me with an unreasonable +amount of anti-French susceptibility, for certainly he abuses our dear +allies with a zeal and a gusto that does one's heart good to listen to; +and I do feel like that honest Bull, commemorated by Mathews, that "I +hate prejudice--I hate the French." So it is: these revolutionists, +these levellers, these men of the people, are never weary of reviling +the French Emperor for being a _parvenu_. Human inconsistency cannot go +much farther than this. Not but I perfectly agree with my Garibaldian, +that we have all agreed to take the most absurdly exaggerated estimate +of the Emperor's ability. Except in some attempts, and not always +successful attempts, to carry out the policy and plans of the first +Empire, there is really nothing that deserves the name of statesmanship +in his career. Wherever he has ventured on a policy, and accompanied it +by a prediction, it has been a failure. Witness the proud declaration +of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, with its corroboration in the +Treaty of Villafranca! The Emperor, in his policy, resembles one of +those whist-players who never plan a game, but play trick by trick, and +rather hope to win by discovering a revoke than from any honest success +of their own hand. It is all the sharp practice of statecraft that +he employs: nor has he many resources in cunning. The same dodge that +served him in the Crimea he revived at Villafranca. It is always the +same ace he has in his sleeve! + +The most ardent Imperialist will not pretend to say that he knows his +road out of rome or Mexico, or even Madagascar. For small intrigue, +short speeches to deputations, and mock stag-hunts, he has not his +superior anywhere. And now, here we are in Genoa, at the Hotel Feder, +where poor O'Connell died, and there's no fleet, not a frigate, in the +port. + +"Where are they?" + +"At Spezia." + +"Where is Spezia?" + +The landlord, to whom this question is propounded, takes out of a +pigeon-hole of his desk a large map and unfolds it, saying, proudly, +"There, sir, that is Spezia--a harbour that could hold Portsmouth, +and Plymouth, and Brest, and Cherbourg "--I'm not sure he didn't say +Calais--"and yet have room for our Italian fleet, which, in two years' +time, will be one of the first in Europe." + +"The ships are building, I suppose?" said I. + +"They are." + +"And where?" + +"In America, at Toulon, and in England." + +"None in Italy?" + +"Pardon me; there is a corvette on the stocks at Leghorn, and they are +repairing a boiler at Genoa. Ah! Signor John Bull, take care; we have +iron and coal mines, we have oak and hemp, and tallow and tar. There +was a winged lion once that swept the seas before people sang 'Rule +Britannia.' History is going to repeat itself." + +"Let me be called at eight to-morrow morning, and my coffee be ready by +nine." + +"And we shall want a vetturino for Spezia," added my Garibaldian; "let +him be here by eleven." + + + + +GARIBALDI'S WORSHIPPERS. + +The road from Genoa to Spezia is one of the most beautiful in Europe. As +the Apennines descend to the sea they form innumerable little bays and +creeks, alongside of which the road winds--now coasting the very shore, +now soaring aloft on high-perched cliffs, and looking down into deep +dells, or to the waving tops of tall pine-trees. Seaward, it is a +succession of yellow-stranded bays, land-locked and narrow; and on the +land side are innumerable valleys, some waving with horse-chestnut and +olive, and others stern and rock-bound, but varying in colour from the +bluish-grey of marble to every shade of porphyry. + +For several miles after we left Genoa, the road presented a succession +of handsome villas, which, neglected and uncared for, and in most +part untenanted, were yet so characteristically Italian in all their +vast-ness--their massive style and spacious plan--as to be great +ornaments of the scenery. Their gardens, too--such glorious wildernesses +of rich profusion--where the fig and the oleander, the vine and the +orange, tangle and intertwine--and cactuses, that would form the wonder +of our conservatories, are trained into hedgerows to protect cabbages. +My companion pointed out to me one of these villas on a little jutting +promontory of rock, with a narrow bay on one side, almost hidden by the +overhanging chestnut-trees. "That," said he, "is the Villa Spinola. It +was from there, after a supper with his friend Vecchi, that Garibaldi +sailed on his expedition to Marsala. A sort of decent secrecy was +maintained as to the departure of the expedition; but the cheers of +those on shore, as the boats pulled off, told that the brave buccaneers +carried with them the heartfelt good wishes of their countrymen." +Wandering on in his talk from the campaign of Sicily and Calabria, +my companion spoke of the last wild freak of Garibaldi and the day of +Aspromonte, and finally of the hero's imprisonment at Varignano, in the +Gulf of Spezia. + +It appeared from his account that the poor wounded sufferer would have +fared very ill, had it not been for the provident kindness and care of +his friends in England, who supplied him with everything he could want +and a great deal he could by no possibility make use of. Wine of +every kind, for instance, was largely sent to one who was a confirmed +water-drinker, and who, except when obliged by the impure state of the +water, never ventured to taste wine. If now and then the zealous anxiety +to be of service had its ludicrous side--and packages arrived of which +all the ingenuity of the General's followers failed to detect what the +meaning might be--there was something very noble and very touching in +this spontaneous sympathy of a whole people, and so Garibaldi felt it. + +The personal homage of the admirers--the worshippers they might be +called--was, however, an infliction that often pushed the patience of +Garibaldi's followers to its limit, and would have overcome the gentle +forbearance of any other living creature than Garibaldi himself. They +came in shoals. Steamboats and diligences were crammed with them, and +the boatmen of Spezia plied as thriving a trade that summer as though +Garibaldi were a saint, at whose shrine the devout of all Europe came to +worship. In vain obstacles were multiplied and difficulties to entrance +invented. In vain it was declared that only a certain number of visitors +were daily admitted, and that the number was already complete. In vain +the doctors announced that the General's condition was prejudiced, and +his feverish state increased, by these continual invasions. Each new +arrival was sure to imagine that there was something special or peculiar +in his case to make him an exception to any rule of exclusion. + +"I knew Garibaldi in Monte Video. You have only to tell him it's +Tomkins; he'll be overjoyed to see me." "I travelled with him from +Manchester to Bridgeport; he'll remember me when he sees me; I lent him +a wrapper in the train." "I knew his son Menotti when at school." "I was +in New York when Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking +for his candles;" such and suchlike were the claims which would not +be denied. At last the infliction became insupportable. Some nights +of unusual pain and suffering required that every precaution against +excitement should be taken, and measures were accordingly concerted how +visitors should be totally excluded. There was this difficulty in the +matter, that it might fall at this precise moment some person of real +consequence might have, or some one whose presence Garibaldi would +really have been well pleased to enjoy. All these considerations were, +however, postponed to the patient's safety, and an order was sent to +the several hotels where strangers usually stopped to announce that +Garibaldi could not be seen. + +"There is a story," said my companion, "which I have heard more than +once of this period, but for whose authenticity I will certainly not +vouch. _Se non vero e' ben trovato_, as regards the circumstance. It +was said that a party of English ladies had arrived at the chief hotel, +having come as a deputation from some heaven-knows-what association in +England, to see the General, and make their own report on his health, +his appearance, and what they deemed his prospect of perfect recovery. +They had come a very long journey, endured a considerable share of +fatigues and certain police attentions, which are not exactly what +are called amenities. They had come, besides, on an errand which might +warrant a degree of insistance even were they--which they were not--of +an order that patiently puts up with denial. When their demand for +admission was replied to by a reference to the general order excluding +all visitors, they indignantly refused to be classed in such a category. +They were not idle tourists, or sensation-hunting travellers. They were +a deputation! They came from the Associated Brothers and Sisters +of Freedom--from the Branch Committee of the Ear of Crying +Nationalities--they were not to be sent away in this light and +thoughtless manner. + +"The correspondence was animated. It lasted the whole day, and the +last-sent epistle of the ladies bore the date of half-past eleven at +night. This was a document of startling import; for, after expressing, +and not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of +the writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort +of way, the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to +England with the story of their rejection. + +"Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the +battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade; +and that, from the hour of these ladies' arrival in England, all +supplies would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the +greater number of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the +suite of Garibaldi, not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts +and choice hosiery, silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the +ordinary wear of people to whom such luxuries were not known even by +description, it was no mean menace that seemed to declare all this was +to have an end. + +"One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of +Arundel's port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that +English liqueur called 'Punch sauce,' and so on; and they very reasonably +disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel. + +"It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed +itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari, +one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore +that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair, +mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat +closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the +General, was the plan--a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief +some annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more +than was now intended. + +"To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in +his habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was +introduced. The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One +dropped, Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot +of his bed; another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained +the bedside to grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion +to water it with her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party +took out her scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble +head. They sobbed over him--they blubbered over him--they compared him +with his photograph, and declared he was libelled--they showered cards +over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, +not unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they +declared that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they'd have willingly +made a pilgrimage to Mecca. + +"It is said," continued my informant, "that Ripari never could be +induced to give another representation; and that he declared the +luxuries that came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed +by a deputation of sympathisers. + +"But to Garibaldi himself, the sympathy and the sympathisers went on to +the last; and kind wishes and winter-clothing still find their way, with +occasionally very tiresome visitors, to the lone rock at Caprera." + + + + +SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. + +Our host of the Feder was not wrong. There was not a word of +exaggeration in what he said of Spezia. It could contain all the +harbours of France and England, and have room for all the fleets of +Europe besides. About seven miles in depth, and varying in width from +two to three and a half, it is fissured on every side by beautiful +little bays, with deep water everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, +or a bar, throughout the whole extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf +has its protection by the long coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away +to the southward and eastward, so that the security is perfect, and a +vessel once anchored within the headlands between Lerici and Palmaria is +as safe as in dock. + +The first idea of making a great arsenal and naval depot of Spezia came +from the Great Emperor. It is said that he was not more than one day +there, but in that time he planned the fort which bears his name, and +showed how the port could be rendered all but impregnable. Cavour took +up the notion, and pursued it with all his wonted energy and activity +during the last three or four years of his life. He carried through the +Chamber his project, and obtained a vote for upwards of two millions +sterling; but his death, which occurred soon after, was a serious blow +to the undertaking; and, like most of the political legacies of the +great statesman, the arsenal of Spezia fell into the hands of weak +executors. + +The first great blunder committed was to accord the chief contract to +a bubble company, who sold it, to be again resold; so that it is said +something like fifteen changes of proprietary occurred before the first +spadeful of earth was turned. + +The inordinate jealousy Italians have of foreigners, and their fear lest +they should "utilise" Italy, and carry away all her wealth with them, +has been the source of innumerable mistakes. From this, and their +own ignorance of marine engineering, Spezia has already, without the +slightest evidence of a commencement, swallowed up above eight millions +of francs--the only palpable results being the disfigurement of a very +beautiful road, and the bankruptcy of some half-dozen contractors. + +There is nothing of which one hears more, than of the readiness and +facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts +himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the +management of new machinery. + +Every newly-come English engineer was struck with this, and expressed +freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. +After a while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself +disappointed--that after the first extraordinary show of intelligence +no progress was made--that they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but +did nothing after. They speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or +say, no matter in what fashion, and impatiently desired to try something +new. The John Bull contentedness to attain perfection in some one +branch, and never ask to go beyond it, was a sentiment they could not +understand. Every one, in fact, would have liked to do everything, and, +as a consequence, do it exceedingly ill. + +Assuredly the Count Cavour was the political Marquis de Carabas of +Italy. Everything you see was his! No other head seemed to contrive, no +other eye to see, nor ear to hear. These railroads--as much for military +movements as passenger traffic--this colossal harbour, even to the two +iron-clads that lie there at anchor--were all of his designing. They +are ugly-looking craft, and have a look of pontoons rather than ships +of war; but they are strong, and have a low draught of water, and were +intended especially for the attack of Venice, just when the Emperor +pulled up short at Villafranca. It is not generally known, I believe, +but I can vouch for the fact, that so terrified were the Austrians on +receiving at Venice the disastrous news of Solferino, that three of the +largest steamers of the Austrian Lloyd's Company were brought up, and +sunk within twelve hours after the battle. So hurriedly was the whole +done that no time was given to remove the steward's stores, and the +vessels went down as they stood! + +This reminds me of a little incident, for whose exact truth I can +guarantee. On the day of the battle of Solferino, the Austrian Envoy +at Rome dined with the Cardinal Antonelli. It was a very joyous little +dinner, each in the highest spirits--satisfied with the present, and +full of hope for the future. The telegram which arrived at mid-day told +that the troops were in motion, and that the artillery fire had already +opened. The position was a noble one--the army full of spirit, and all +confident that before the sun should set the tide of victory would have +turned, and the white legions of the Danube be in hot pursuit of their +flying enemy. Indeed, the Envoy came to dinner fortified with a mass of +letters from men high in command, all of which assumed as indisputable +that the French must be beaten. Of the Italians they never spoke at all. + +As the two friends sat over the dessert, they discussed what at that +precise moment might be going on over the battle-field. Was the conflict +still continuing? Had the French reserves been brought up? Had they, +too, been thrown back, beaten and disordered? and where was the fourth +corps under the Prince Napoleon? They were forty thousand strong--could +they have arrived in time from the Po? All these casualties, and many +others, did they talk over, but never once launching a doubt as to the +issue, or ever dreaming that the day was not to reverse all the late +past, and bring back the Austrians in triumph to Milan. + +As they sat, the Prefect of Police was announced and introduced. He +came with the list of the persons who were to be arrested and sent to +prison--they were one hundred and eighteen, some of them among the first +families of Rome--so soon as certain tidings of the victory arrived, and +the game of reaction might be safe to begin. + +"No news yet, Signor Prefetto! come back at ten," said the Cardinal + +At ten he presented himself once more. The Cardinal and his friend were +taking coffee, but less joyous, it seemed, than before. At least they +looked anxious for news, and started at every noise in the street that +might announce new-come tidings. "We have heard nothing since you were +here," said the Cardinal. "His Excellency thinks that, at a moment +of immense exigency, they may not have immediately bethought them of +sending off a despatch." + +"There can be no doubt what the news will be when it comes," said the +Envoy, "and I'd say, make the arrests at once." + +"I don't know; I'm not sure. I think I'd rather counsel a little more +patience," said the Cardinal. "What if you were to come back at, let us +say, midnight." The Prefect bowed, and withdrew. + +At midnight it was the same scene, only that the actors were more +agitated; the Envoy, at least, worked up to a degree of impatience that +bordered on fever; for while he persisted in declaring that the result +was certain, he continued to censure, in very-severe terms, the culpable +carelessness of those charged with the transmission of news. "Ah!" cried +he, "there it comes at last!" and a loud summons at the bell resounded +through the house. + +"A telegram, Eminence," said the servant, entering with the despatch. +The Envoy tore it open: there were but two words,--"_Sanglante +deroute_." + +The Cardinal took the paper from the hands of the overwhelmed and +panic-struck minister, and read it. He stood for a few seconds gazing on +the words, not a line or lineament in his face betraying the slightest +emotion; then, turning to the Envoy, he said, "Bon soir; allons dormir;" +and moved away with his usual quick little step, and retired. + +And all this time I have been forgetting the Italian fleet, which lies +yonder beneath me. The Garibaldi, that they took from the Neapolitans; +the Duca di Genova, the Maria Adelaide, and the Regina are there, all +screw-propellers of fifty guns each; the Etna, a steam-corvette; and +some six or seven old sailing craft, used as school ships; and, lastly, +the two cuirassee gunboats, Formidabile and Terribile, and which, with a +jealousy imitated from the French, no one is admitted on board of. +They are provided with "rams" under the water-line, and have a strange +apparatus by which about one-third of the deck towards the bow can be +raised, like the lid of a snuff-box, leaving the forepart of the ship +almost on a level with the water. Under what circumstances, and how, +this provision is to be made available, I have not the very vaguest +conception. + +These vessels were never intended as sea-going ships; and the batteries +are an exaggeration of the mistake in the Gloire, for even with the +slightest sea the ports must be closed. Besides this defect, they roll +abominably, and with a full head of steam on they cannot accomplish +seven knots. + +Turning from the ships to the harbour, I could not help thinking of +Sydney Smith's remark on the Reform Club, "I prefer your room to your +company;" for, after all, what a sorry stud it is for such a magnificent +stable! It is but a beginning, you will say. True enough, and so is +everything just now here; but, except the Genoese, the Italians have few +real sailors. There are no deep-sea fisheries, and the small craft which +creep along close to shore are not the nurseries of seamen. The world, +however, has resolved, by a large vote, to be hopeful about Italy; and, +of course, she will have a fleet, as she will have all the trade of the +Levant, immensely productive mines, and vast regions of cotton. "What +for no?" as Meg Dodds says; but I can't help thinking there are no +people in Europe so much alike as the Italians and the Irish; and I ask +myself, How is it that every one is so sanguine about the one, and +so hopeless about the other? Why do we hear of the capacity and the +intelligence of the former, and only of the latter what pertains to +their ignorance and their sloth? Oh! unjust generation of men! have +not my poor countrymen all the qualities you extol in these same +Peninsulars, plus a few others not to be disparaged? + + + + +THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. + +At the Croce di Malta, where we stopped--the Odessa, we heard, +was atrociously bad--we met a somewhat depressed countryman, whose +familiarity with place and people was indicated by several little +traits. He rebuked the waiter for the salad oil, and was speedily +supplied with better; he remonstrated about the wine, and a superior +"cru" was served the day following. The book of the arrivals, too, was +brought to him each day as he sat down to table, and he grunted out, +I remember, in no very complimentary fashion as he read our names, +"Nobodies." + +My Garibaldian friend had gone over to Massa, so that I found myself +alone with this gentleman on the night of my arrival; for, when the +company of the _table-d'hote_ withdrew, he and I were discovered, as the +stage-people say, seated opposite to each other at the fire. + +It blew hard without; the sea beat loudly on the shingly shore, and +even sent some drifts of spray against the windows; while within doors +a cheerful wood-fire blazed on the ample hearth, and the low-ceilinged +room did not look a whit the worse that it suggested snugness instead +of splendour. I had got my cup of coffee and my cognac on a little table +beside me; and while I filled the bowl of my pipe, I bethought me how +cheap and come-at-able are often the materials of our comfort, if one +had but the prudence which ignores all display. My companion, apparently +otherwise occupied in thought, sat gazing moodily at the fire, and to +all seeming unaware of my presence. + +"Will my smoking annoy you, sir?" asked I, as I was ready to begin. + +"No," said he, without looking up. "I'd like to know where one could go +to live nowadays if it did." + +"Very true," said I; "the practice is almost universal" + +"So is child-murder, so is profane swearing, so is wearing a beard, and +poisoning by strychnine." + +I was somewhat struck by his enumeration of modern atrocities, and I +said, in a tone intended to invite converse, "You are no admirer, then, +of what some are fain to call progress?" + +He started, and, turning a fierce sharp glance on me, said, "I'd rather +you'd touch me with that hot poker there, sir, than hurl that hateful +word at my ears. If there's a thing I hate the most, it's what cant--a +vile modern slang--calls 'Progress.' You're just in the spot at this +moment to mark one of its high successes. Do you know Spezia?" "Not in +the least; never was here before." "Well, sir, I have known it, I'll not +stop to count how many years; but I knew it when that spot yonder, where +you see that vile tall chimney, with its tail of murky smoke, was a +beautiful little villa, all overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where +you perceive that red glare--the flame of a smelting furnace--there was +an orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse +stood, on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, +turn to this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four +main lines, cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen +timber, with swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the +other, led--ay, and not four years ago--along the margin of the sea, +with a forest of chestnuts on the other side, two lines of acacias +forming a shade along it, so that in the mid-day of an Italian July you +might walk it in delicious shadow. In the Gulf itself the whole scene +was mirrored, and not a headland, nor rock, nor cliff, that was not +pictured below. It was, in a word, a little paradise; nor were the +people all unworthy of their lovely birthplace. They were a quiet, +civil, obliging, simple-minded set--if not inviting strangers to settle +amongst them, never rude or repelling to them; equitable in dealings, +and strange to all disturbance or outrage. What they are now is no more +easy to say than what a rivulet is when a torrent has carried away its +banks and swept its bed. Two thousand navvies, the outsweepings of jails +and the galleys, have come down to the works; a horde of contractors, +sub-contractors, with the several staffs of clerks, inspectors, and +suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its beauty, uprooting its +repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and converting the very gem +of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp--a vast amphitheatre, where +liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul miasma, centrifugal pumps, +and tertian fevers, fight all day for the mastery. And for what?--for +what? To fill the pockets of knavish ministers and thieving +officials--to make an arsenal that will never be finished, for a fleet +that will never be built." My companion, it is needless to say, was no +optimist; but the strange point was, that while he was unsparing of his +censure on Cavour and the "Piedmontese party," he was no apologist for +the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he launched out +freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and corruption, and +freely corroborated our own Premier's assertions, by calling the Pope's +the "worst government in Europe." In fact, he showed very clearly that +the smaller states of Italy were well or ill administered in the direct +ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal interference,--Modena being +the worst, and Tuscany the best of them. + +Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went--for he not +merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the +characters and tempers of the leading Italians--yet, with all this, I +could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy, +and yet did not like the new, what he did wish for? + +"I have my theory on that subject, sir," said he; "nor am I the less +enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt +it." + +"It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose," said I; +"Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers." + +"Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you +did." + +I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial +concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy. + +"I'd unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a +small circle around Rome, are not Latins--they are Greeks. I'd bring +them back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with +craft and subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they'd not +cheat the 'Hellenes' as they do the French and the English; and as the +only true way to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I'd unite +them to a race that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What +is it, I ask you, makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, +the prudent, hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States? +Simply the fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no +longer serves him. The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and +Paddy must use his hands instead of his head. The same would happen with +the Italian. Give him a Greek master, and you'll see what he'll become." + +"But the Greeks, after all," said I, "do not present such a splendid +example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands." + +"And don't you see why?" broke he in. "Have you ever looked into a +gambling-house when the company had no 'pigeon,' and were obliged to +play against each other. They have lost all decency--all the semblance +of good manners and decorum. Whatever little politeness they had put +on to impose upon the outsider was gone, and there they were in all the +naked atrocity of their bad natures. It is thus you see the Greeks. You +have dropped in upon them unfairly; you have invaded a privacy they had +hoped might be respected. Give them a nation to cheat, however; let +the pigeon be introduced, and you'll not see a better bred and a more +courtly people in Europe." + +That they had great social qualities he proceeded to show from a number +of examples. They were, in fact, in the world of long ago what the +French are to our own day, and there was no reason to suppose that +the race had lost its old characteristics. According to my companion's +theory, Force had only its brief interval of domination anywhere; the +superior intelligence was sure to gain the upper hand at last; and +we, in our opposition to this law, were supply retarding an inevitable +tendency of nature--protracting the fulfilment of what we could not +prevent. + +I got him back from these speculations to speak of himself, and he told +me some experiences which will, perhaps, account for the displeasure +with which he regards the changed fortunes of Spezia. I shall give +his narrative as nearly as I can in his own words, and in a chapter to +itself. + + + + +THE STRANGE MAN'S SORROW. + +"When I first knew Spezia, it was a very charming spot to pass the +summer in. The English had not found it out A bottle of Harvey sauce or +a copy of 'Galignani' had never been seen here; and the morning meal, +which now figures in my bill as 'Dejeuner complet--two francs.' was then +called 'Coffee,' and priced twopence. I used to pass my day in a small +sail-boat, and in my evenings I played halfpenny whist with the judge +and the commander of the forces and a retired envoy, who, out of a +polite attention to me as a stranger, agreed to play such high stakes +during my sojourn at the Baths. + +"They were excellent people, of unblemished character, and a politeness +I have rarely seen equalled. Nobody could sneeze without the whole +company rising to wish him a long and prosperous life, or a male heir +to his name; and as for turning the trump card without a smile and a bow +all round to the party, it was a thing unheard of. + +"I thought if I could only secure a spot to live in in such an Arcadia, +it would be charming, but this was a great difficulty. No one had any +accommodation more than he wanted for himself. The very isolation that +gave the place its charm excluded all speculation, and not a house was +to be had. In my voyagings, however, around the Gulf, I landed one +day at a little inlet, surrounded with high lands, and too small to +be called a bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a +small villa. It looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, +and where you take off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs +are made and the rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one +side and an orangery at the other, and it all looked the neatest and +prettiest little thing one ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I +drew my boat on shore and strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not +even a dog. There was a deep well with a draw-bucket, and I filled my +gourd with ice-cold water; and then plucking a ripe orange that had just +given me a bob in the eye, I sat down to eat it. While I was engaged, I +heard a wicket open and shut, and saw an old man, very shabbily dressed, +and with a mushroom straw hat, coming towards me. Before I could make +excuses for my intrusion, he had welcomed me to Pertusola--'The Nook,' +in English--and invited me to step in and have a glass of wine. + +"I took him for the steward or fattore, and acceded, not sorry to ask +some questions about the villa and its owner. He showed me over the +house, explaining with much pride how a certain kitchen-range came from +England, though nobody ever knew the use of it, but it was all very +comfortable. The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more +space, and contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would +have approved of. Yet there were capabilities--great capabilities; +and so, before I left, I took it from the old gentleman in the +rusty costume, who turned out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the +'commendatore' of I don't know what order, and various other dignities +beside, all recited and set forth in the lease. + +"I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved +the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn't an island, but it was +all but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock +denied access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable +pine wood to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that +even now, when I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire +of an evening, I just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through +its olive groves, or watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara +mountains. + +"I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got +flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little +plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses, +so that the Queen--she was at Spezia for the bathing--came once to see +my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was as +gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in +their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with +enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times +as inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and +its quality--was it a spring--did it ever fail--and when, and how? Then +as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? What the +anchorage was like--mud--and why mud? And when I said there was always +a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, why? and I did +explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, which acted +as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back to verify +my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining everything, +and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to experience +the currents of air. 'You are right,' said he, as he got into his boat, +'quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a smelting-furnace.' + +"I thought it odd praise at the time, but before six months I received +notice to quit. + +"Pertusola had been sold to a lead company, one of the directors having +strongly recommended the site as an admirable harbour, with good water, +and a perpetual draught of wind, equal to a blast-furnace." + +Looking at the dress-coat in which you once captivated dinner-parties, +on a costeimonger--seeing the strong-boned hunter that has carried you +over post and rail, in a cab,--are sore trials; but nothing, according +to my companion's description, to the desecration of your house and home +by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the "Inferno," too, +pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its flash, +and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the passionate +warmth with which he described it. + +"They had begun that chimney, sir," cried he, "before I got out of the +house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they +were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see +the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the +place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can +see on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no +depth to anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in +stillness. No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, +I must be brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn't been +eight months there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and +four persons in plain clothes landed from her, and pottered about the +shore--I thought looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my +house, and asked permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace. +I acceded, and in they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do +you think he was? The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran +cold when I saw him. + +"'You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,' said he to me, coolly. + +"'Yes, and I might have been living there still,' replied I, 'if it +had not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak +enough to be polite.' + +"He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, +passed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, +and I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; +for not only did he describe the exact measurements between various +points, but the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the +currents, and the prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by +running out a pier here, and a breakwater there--by filling up this, and +deepening that--safe anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while +the headlands could be easily fortified, and 'at a moderate cost,' I +quote himself, 'of say twenty two or three millions of francs, while a +fort erected on the island there would command the whole entrance.' + +"'And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?' cried I; for, +as they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly. + +"He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, +'Who knows? the French perhaps--perhaps your own people one of these +days.' + +"I'd like to have said, but I didn't, 'We could walk in and walk out +here, with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with +a mackintosh.' + +"They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf +and dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man--he looked +exactly like an owl--said, with a little grin, 'We're going to disturb +you again.' + +"'How so?' cried I; 'you can't smelt lead here.' + +"'No, but we're going to make an arsenal. Where you stand now will be a +receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You'll have to +clear out before the New Year.' + +"'Who is he? who is that with the spectacles?' asked I of one of the +servants, who waited outside with cloaks and umbrellas. + +"'That's the Conte di Cavour,' said the fellow, haughtily; and thus was +the whole murder out at once. They turned me out, sir, in two months, +and I never ventured to take a lease of a place till he died. After that +event, I purchased a little spot on the island of Tino yonder, and built +myself a cottage. They could neither smelt metal nor build a ship there, +and I hugged myself at the thought of safety. But, would you believe +it? last week--only last week--his successor, in rummaging over Cavour's +papers in the Foreign Office, comes upon a packet labelled 'Spezia,' and +discovers a memorandum in these words, 'The English Admiral, at dinner +to-day, laughed at the idea of defending the mouth of the Gulf from +the island. He said the entrance should be two-thirds closed by a +breakwater, and a strong fort _a fleur d'eau_ built on Tino. I have +thought of it all night; he is perfectly right, and I'll do it;' and +here, sir," said my companion, drawing a paper from his pocket, "is a +'sommation' from the minister to surrender my holding on Tino, receiving +a due compensation for the same, and once more betake myself, heaven +knows where; for, though the great Count Cavour is dead and gone, +his grand intentions are turning up every day, out of drawers and +pigeonholes, and I shrewdly suspect that neither Pio Nono nor myself +will live to see the last of them." + + + + +ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. + +My Garibaldian friend has returned, but only to bid me good-bye and be +off again. The Government, it would seem, are rather uneasy as to the +movements of the "Beds," and quietly intimated to my friend that +they were sure he had something particular to do--some urgent private +affairs--at Geneva; and, like the well-bred dog in the story, he does +not wait for any further suggestions, but goes at once. + +He revenged himself, however, all the time at breakfast, by talking very +truculently before the waiters of what would happen when Garibaldi took +the field again, and how miserably small Messrs Batazzi & Co. would look +under the circumstances. Indeed, as he warmed with his subject, he +went the length of declaring that, without a very ample apology for the +events of Aspromonte, he did not believe Garibaldi would consent to take +Venice, or drive the French out of Rome. + +With a spirit of tantalising he prolonged this same breakfast for +upwards of two hours, during which the officer of the gendarmerie came +and went, and came again, very eager to see him depart, but evidently +with instructions neither to molest nor interfere with him. + +"Just look at that beggar," cried the Garibaldian; "if he has come in +here once during the last hour, he has come a dozen times, and all on my +account! And I mean to smoke three 'cavours' over my anisetto before I +leave. Waiter, tell the vetturino he'll have plenty of time to throw +a feed to his cattle before I start. You know," added he, "if I was +disposed to be troublesome, I'd not budge: I'd write up to Turin to the +Legation and claim British protection; and I'd have these fellows on the +hip, for they stupidly gave me a reason for my expulsion. They said I +was conspiring. Now I could say, Prove it; and if we only went to law, +it would take ten or twelve years to decide it." + +My companion now went on to show that, by a small expenditure of money +and a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity, a lawsuit need never end +in Italy. "First of all, you could ask the opposite party, Who was his +advocate? and on his naming him, you could immediately set to work to +show that this man was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with +the commonest pretension to honesty would dream of employing him. The +history of his father could be adduced, and any private little anecdotes +of his mother would find a favourable opportunity for mention. Though a +mere skirmish, if judiciously managed, this will occupy a week or two, +and at the same time serve to indicate that you mean to show fight; for +by this time the 'Legale's' blood will be up, and he is certain to make +reprisals on _your_ man, so that for a month or so you and the other +principal are in the position of men who, having come out to fight +a duel, are first gratified with the spectacle of a row between the +seconds. However, at last it is arranged that the lawyers are worthy +of each other; and the next step is to demand the names of all the +witnesses. This opens a campaign of unlimited duration, for, as nobody +is rash enough to trust himself or his cause to real and _bona-fide_ +testimony, witnesses are usually selected amongst the most astute and +ready-witted persons of your acquaintance." "Oh," cried I, "this is a +little too strong, isn't it?" "Let me give you an instance," said he, +good-humouredly, and not in the least disposed to be displeased with my +expression of distrust. "Some time back an American gentleman took up +his abode for some weeks on the Chiaja at Naples, and in the same house +there lived an Italian, with whom, from frequently meeting on the stairs +and corridors, a sort of hat-touching acquaintance had grown up. At +length one day, as the American was passing hastily out, the Italian +accosted him with a courteous bow and smile, and said, 'When will it be +your perfect convenience, signor, to repay me that little loan of two +hundred ducats it was my happy privilege to have lent you last month?' + +"The American, astounded as he was, had yet patience to inquire whether +he had not mistaken him for another. + +"The other smiled somewhat reproachfully, as he said, 'I trust, signor, +you are not disposed to ignore the obligation. You are the gentleman who +lives, I believe, on the second floor left?' + +"'Very true; I do live there, and I owe you nothing. I never borrowed a +carlino from you--I never spoke to you before; and if you ever take the +liberty to speak to me again, I'll knock you down.' + +"The Italian smiled again, not so blandly, perhaps, but as +significantly, and saying, 'We shall see,' bowed and retired. + +"The American thought little more of the matter till, going to the +Prefecture to obtain his vise for Borne, he discovered that his passport +had been stopped, and a detainer put upon him for this debt. He hastened +at once to his Minister, who referred him to the law-adviser of the +Legation for counsel. The man of law looked grave; he neither heeded the +angry denunciations of the enraged Yankee, nor his reiterated assurances +that the whole was an infamous fraud. He simply said, 'The case is +difficult, but I will do my best.' After the lapse of about a week, a +message came from the Prefect to say that the stranger's passport was at +his service whenever he desired to have it. + +"'I knew it would be so!' cried the American, as he came suddenly upon +his lawyer in the street. 'I was certain that you were only exaggerating +the difficulty of a matter that must have been so simple; for, as I +never owed the money, there was no reason why I should pay it.' + +"'It was a case for some address, notwithstanding,' said the other, +shaking his head. + +"'Address! fiddle-stick! It was a plain matter of fact, and needed +neither skill nor cunning. You of course showed that this fellow was a +stranger to me--that we had never interchanged a word till the day he +made this rascally demand?' + +"'I did nothing of the kind, sir. If I had put in so contemptible a +plea, you would have lost your cause. What I did was this: I asked what +testimony he could adduce as to the original loan, and he gave me the +name of one witness, a certain Count well known in this city, who was at +breakfast with him when you called to borrow this money, and who saw the +pieces counted out and placed in your hand.' + +"'You denounced this fellow as a perjurer?' + +"'Far from it, sir. I respect the testimony of a man of station and +family, and I would not insult the feelings of the Count by daring to +impugn it; but as the plaintiff had called only one witness to the loan, +I produced two just as respectable, just as distinguished, who saw you +repay the debt! You are now free; and remember, sir, that wherever +your wanderings lead you, never cease to remember that, whatever be +our demerits at Naples, at least we can say with pride, The laws are +administered with equal justice to all men!'" + +The entrance of the gendarme at this moment cut short the question I +was about to ask, whether I was to accept this story as a fact or as a +parable. + +"Here he comes again. Only look at the misery in the fellow's face! and +you see he has his orders evidently enough; and he dare not hurry me. I +think I'll have a bath before I start." + +"It is scarcely fair, after all," said I. "I suppose he wants to get +back to his one o'clock dinner." + +"I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a +scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe--the most generous, the +most trustful, the most unsuspecting--make a brigadier of Gendarmerie of +him for three months, and he'll come out scarcely a shade brighter than +the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! Do you know what our friend yonder +is at now?" + +"No. He appears to be trying to take a stain out of one of his yellow +gauntlets." + +"No such thing. He is noting down your features--taking a written +portrait of you, as the man who sat at breakfast with me on a certain +morning of a certain month. Take my word for it, some day or other when +you purchase a hat too tall in the crown, or you are seen to wear your +whiskers a trifle too long or bushy, an intimation will reach you at +your hotel, that the Prefect would like to talk with you; the end of +which will be the question, 'Whether there is not a friend you are most +anxious to meet in Switzerland, or if you have not an uncle impatient to +see you at Trieste?' And yet," added he, after a pause, "the Piedmontese +are models of liberality and legality in comparison with the officials +in the south. In Sicily, for instance, the laws are more corruptly +administered than in Turkey. I'll tell you a case, which was, however, +more absurd than anything else. An English official, well known at +Messina, and on the most intimate terms with the Prefect, came back from +a short shooting-excursion he had made into the interior, half frantic +with the insolence of the servants at a certain inn. The proprietor +was absent, and the waiter and the cook--not caring, perhaps, to be +disturbed for a single traveller--had first refused flatly to admit him; +and afterwards, when he had obtained entrance, treated him to the worst +of food, intimating at the same time it was better than he was used +to, and plainly giving him to understand that on the very slightest +provocation they were prepared to give him a sound thrashing. Boiling +over with passion, he got back to Messina, and hastened to recount his +misfortunes to his friend in power. + +"'Where did it happen?' asked the hard-worked Prefect, with folly enough +on his hands without having to deal with the sorrows of Great Britons. + +"'At Spalla deMonte.' + +"'When?' + +"'On Wednesday last, the 23d.' + +"'What do you want me to do with them?' + +"'To punish them, of course.' + +"'How--in what way?' + +"'How do I know? Send them to jail.' + +"'For how long?' + +"'A month if you can--a fortnight at least.' + +"'What are the names?' asked the Prefect, who all this time continued to +write, filling up certain blanks in some printed formula before him. + +"'How should I know their names? I can only say that one was the cook, +the other the waiter.' + +"'There!' said the Prefect, tossing two sheets of printed and +written-over paper towards him--'there! tell the landlord to fill in the +fellows' names and surnames, and send that document to the Podesta. They +shall have four weeks, and with hard labour.' + +"The Englishman went his way rejoicing. He despatched the missive, and +felt his injuries were avenged. + +"Two days after, however, a friend dropped in, and in the course of +conversation mentioned that he had just come from Spalla de Monte, where +he had dined so well and met such an intelligent waiter; 'which, I own,' +said he, 'surprised me, for I had heard of their having insulted some +traveller last week very grossly.' + +"The Englishman hurried off to the Prefecture. 'We are outraged, +insulted, laughed at!' cried he: 'those fellows you ordered to prison +are at large. They mock your authority and despise it.' + +"A mounted messenger was sent off at speed to bring up the landlord to +Messina, and he appeared the next morning, pale with fear and trembling. +He owned that the Prefect's order had duly reached him, that he had +understood it thoroughly; 'but, Eccellenza,' said he, crying, 'it was +the shooting season; people were dropping in every day. Where was I to +find a cook or a waiter? I must have closed the house if I parted with +them; so, not to throw contempt on your worship's order, I sent two +of the stablemen to jail in their place, and a deal of good it will do +them.'" + +While I was laughing heartily at this story, my companion turned towards +the gendarme and said, "Have you made a note of his teeth? you see they +are tolerably regular, but one slightly overlaps the other in front." + +"Signor Generale," said the other, reddening, "I'll make a note of +_your_ tongue, which will do quite as well." + +"Bravo!" said the Garibaldian; "better said than I could have given you +credit for. I'll not keep you any longer from your dinner. Will you bear +me company," asked he of me, "as far as Chiavari? It's a fine day, and +we shall have a pleasant drive." + +I agreed, and we started. + +The road was interesting, the post-horses which we took at Borghetto +went well, and the cigars were good, and somehow we said very little to +each other as we went. + +"This is the real way to travel," said my companion; "a man to smoke +with and no bother of talking; there's Chiavari in the hollow." + +I nodded, and never spoke. + +"Are you inclined to come on to Genoa?" + +"No." + +And soon after we parted--whether ever to meet again or not is not so +easy to say, nor of very much consequence to speculate on. + + + + +THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. + +There is scarcely any better measure of the amount of comfort a man +enjoys than in the sort of things of which he makes grievances. When +the princess in the Eastern story passed a restless night on account of +the rumpled rose-leaf she lay on, the inference is, that she was not, +like another character of fiction, accustomed to "lie upon straw." + +Thus thinking, I was led to speculate on what a happy people must +inhabit the British Islands, seeing the amount of indignation and +newspaper wrath bestowed upon what is called the Organ Nuisance. Now, +granting that it is not always agreeable to have a nasal version of the +march in 'William Tell,' 'Home, sweet Home,' or 'La Donna e mobile,' +under one's window at meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker +hours of headache, surely the nation which cries aloud over this as a +national calamity must enjoy no common share of Fortune's favour, and +have what the Yankees call a "fine time" here below. + +Scarcely a week, however, goes over without one of these persecutors of +British ears being brought up to justice, and some dreary penny-a-liner +appears to prosecute in the person of a gentleman of literary pursuits, +whose labours, like those of Mr Babbage, may be lost to the world, if +the law will not hunt down the organs, and cry "Tally high-ho" to the +"grinders." + +It might be grave matter of inquiry whether the passing annoyance +of 'Cherry ripe' was not a smaller infliction than some of the tiresome +lucubrations it has helped to muddle; and I half fancy I'd as soon +listen to the thunder as drink the small beer it has soured into +vinegar. + +However, as the British Public is resolved on making it a grievance, and +as some distinguished statesman has deemed it worth his while to devise +a bill for its suppression, it is in vain to deny that the evil is one +of magnitude. England has declared she will not be ground down by the +Savoyard, and there is no more to be said of it. + +A great authority in matters of evasion once protested that he would +engage to drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament that ever +was framed, and I believe him. So certain is language to be too wide or +too narrow--to embrace too much, and consequently fail in +distinctness, or to include too little, and so defeat the attempt to +particularise--that it does not call for more than an ordinary amount of +acuteness to detect the flaws of such legislation. Then, when it comes +to a discussion, and amendments are moved, and some honourable gentleman +suggests that after the word "Whereas" in section 93 the clause should +run "in no case, save in those to be hereafter specified," &c., there +comes a degree of confusion and obscurity that invariably renders +the original parent of the measure unable to know his offspring, and +probably intently determined to destroy it. That in their eagerness for +law-making the context of these bills is occasionally overlooked, one +may learn from the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as +the punishment of a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that +one-half of the sum should go to the county, one-half to the informer. +Parliament, however, altered the law, but overlooked the context. +Imprisonment with hard labour was decreed as the penalty of the offence, +and the clause remained--"one-half to the county, one-half to the +informer." + +A Judge of no mean acuteness, the Chief Baron O'Grady, once declared, +with respect to an Act against sheep-stealing, that after two careful +readings he could not decide whether the penalties applied to the +owner, of the sheep, the thief, or the sheep itself, for that each +interpretation might be argumentatively sustained. + +How will you suppress the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits +of a man's domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his +area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the 'Hat-catcher's Daughter' +because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by 'Sich +a gettin' up stairs' because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long +may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his +barrels--the dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how +long or how loud the grand chorus in 'Nabucco' should be performed? What +endless litigation will be instituted by any attempt to provide for +all these and a score more of similar casualties, not to speak of the +insolent persecution that may be practised by the performance of tunes +of a party character. Fancy Dr Wiseman composing a pastoral to the air +of 'Croppies, lie down,' or the Danish Minister writing a despatch to +the inspiriting strains of 'Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.' There +might come a time, too, when 'Sie sollen ihm nicht haben' might grate on +a French ambassador's ears. Can your Act take cognisance of all these? + +I see nothing but inextricable confusion in the attempt--confusion, +difficulty, and defeat. There will be an Act, and an Act to amend that +Act, and another Act to alter so much of such an Act, and then a final +Act to repeal them all; so that at last the mover of a bill on the +subject will be the greatest "organ nuisance" that the world has yet +heard of. + +It was "much reflecting" over these things, as my Lord Brougham says, +that I sauntered along the Riviera from Genoa, and came to the little +town of Chiavari, with its long sweep of yellow beach in front and its +glorious grove of orange-trees behind--sure, whether the breeze came +from land or sea, to inhale health and perfume. There is a wide old +Piazza in the centre of the town, with a strange, dreary sort of inn +with a low-arched entrance, under whose shade sit certain dignitaries of +the place of an evening, sipping their coffee and talking over what they +imagine to be the last news of the day. From these "Conscript Fathers" I +learned that Chiavari is the native place of the barrel-organ, that +from this little town go forth to all the dwellers in remotest lands +the grinders of the many-cylindered torment, the persecutor of the +prose-writer, the curse of him who calculates. Just as the valleys of +Savoy supply white-mice men, and Lucca produces image-carriers, so does +Chiavari yield its special product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, +in their ambitions, have attempted the "industry," but they have +egregiously failed; and Chiavari remains as distinctive in its product +as Spitalfields for its shawls, or Dresden for its china. Whether there +may be some peculiarity in the biceps of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar +development which imparts power to his performance, I know not. I am +forced to own that I have failed to discover to what circumstance or +from what quality this excellence is derivable; but there is the fact, +warranted and confirmed by a statistical return, that but for Chiavari +we should have no barrel-organs. + +"Never imagine," said a wise prelate, "that you will root Popery out of +England till you destroy Oxford. If you want to get rid of the crows, +you must pull down the rookery." The words of wisdom flashed suddenly +over my mind as I walked across the silent Piazza at midnight; and I +exclaimed--"Yes! here is the true remedy for the evil. With two hours +of a gunboat and four small Armstrongs the thing is done; batter down +Chiavari, and Bab-bage will bless you with his last breath. Pull down +the cookery, and crush the young rooks in the ruins. Smash the cradle +and the babe within it, and you need not fear the man!" + +There is a grand justice in the conception that is highly elevating. +There is something eminently fine in making Chiavari, like the Cities +of the Plain, a monument over its own iniquity. Leave not one stone upon +another of it, and there will be peace in our homes and stillness in our +streets. No more shall the black-bearded tormentor terrorise over Baker +Street, or lord it in the Edgeware Road. + +Commander Snort of the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate +not only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the +inhabitant of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you +will no longer need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here +is what the age especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness +with efficiency. It may be said that we have no more right to destroy +Chiavari than Kagosima, but that question is at least debatable. Are not +the headaches of tens of thousands of more avail than the head of one? +What becomes of that noble principle, the greatest happiness of the +greatest number? The Italians, too, might object: true, but they are +neither Americans nor French. They come into the category of states that +may be bullied. The countries which have an extended seaboard and weak +naval armaments are like people with a large glass frontage and no +shutters. There is nothing to prevent us shying a stone at the Italian +window as we pass up to Constantinople, even though we run away +afterwards. I repeat, therefore, the plan is feasible. As to its +cheapness, it would not cost a tithe of what we spent in destroying the +tea-tray fortifications of Satsuma; and as we have a classic turn for +monuments, a pyramid of barrel-organs in Charing Cross might record to a +late posterity the capture of Chiavari. + +I am not without a certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel +it is a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on +these organ fellows--for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, +the type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our +boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a "Grind" in the world as +Locke King, and his motion for Reform? What do you say to "Rest and be +thankful," and, above all, what to the "Peace-at-any-price people"? + +Is 'Cherry ripe' more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled +on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? +In all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a +Foreign Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against +these. Bring up John Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the +neighbourhood of Birmingham, by insane accusations against his own +country and laudations of America, and I doubt if you could find a +magistrate on the bench to commit him; and will you tell me that the +droning whine of 'Garibaldi's March' is worse than this? As to the +_Civis Romanus_ cant, it is too painful to dwell on, now that we are +derided, ridiculed, and sneered at from Stockholm to Stamboul. Like +Canning's philanthropist, we have been asking every one for his story; +never was there a soul so full of sympathy for sorrow. We have heard the +tale of Italy, the sufferings of the Confederates, the crying wrongs +of Poland, and the still more cruel, because less provoked, trials of +Denmark. We have thrown up hands and eyes--sighed, groaned, wept; we +have even denounced the ill-doers, and said, What a terrible retribution +awaited them! but, like our great prototype, when asked for assistance, +we have said, + +"I'll see you ------ first." + +Let us be merciful, therefore, and think twice before we batter down +Chiavari. The organ nuisance is a bore, no doubt; but what are the most +droning ditties that ever addled a weary head, compared to the tiresome +grind of British moral assistance, and the greatness of that _Civis +Romanus_ who hugs his own importance and helps nobody? + + + + +R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D'INDUSTRIE OF OUR DAY. + +I was struck the other day by an account of an application made to the +Lord Mayor of London by a country clergyman, to give, as a warning to +others, publicity to a letter he had just received from the East. The +clergyman, it seems, had advertised in the 'Times' for pupils, and gave +for address a certain letter of the Greek alphabet. To this address +there came in due time an answer from a gentleman, dated Constantinople, +stating that he was an Anglo-Indian on his way to England, to place +his two sons in an educational establishment; but that having, by +an excursion to Jerusalem, exhausted his immediate resources, he was +obliged to defer the prosecution of his journey till the arrival of some +funds he expected from India--certain to arrive in a month or two. +Not wishing, however, to delay the execution of his project, and being +satisfied with the promises held forth by the advertiser, he purposed +placing his sons under his care, and to do so, desired that forty pounds +might be remitted him at once, to pay his journey to England, for which +convenience he, the writer, would not alone be obliged, but also extend +his patronage to the lender, by recommending him to his friend Sir Hugh +Rose, who was himself desirous of sending his sons to be educated in +England. The address of a banker was given to whom the money should be +remitted, and an immediate reply requested, or "application should be +made in some other quarter." + +Now, the clergyman did not answer this strange appeal, but he inserted +another advertisement, changing, however, the symbol by which he was +to be addressed, and appearing in this way to be a different person. To +this new address there came another letter, perfectly identical in style +and matter: the only change was, that the writer was now at the Hotel +de la Reine d'Angleterre at Buda; but all the former pledges of future +protection were renewed, as well as the request for a prompt reply, or +"application will be made in another quarter." + +The clergyman very properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, +with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, +against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The +strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the +offender; nor was there in the 'Times,' or in the other newspapers where +the circumstances were detailed, one single surmise as to the identity +of this ingenious individual. It is the more singular, since this man +is a specialty--an actual personification of some of the very subtlest +rogueries of the age we live in! + +If any of my readers can recall a very remarkable exposure the 'Times' +newspaper made some ten or twelve years ago, of a most shameful fraud +practised upon governesses, by which they were induced to deposit a sum +equivalent to their travelling expenses from England to some town on the +Continent, as a guarantee to the employer, they will have discovered +the gentleman with the two sons to be educated--the traveller in Syria, +the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, the Anglo-Indian who expects eight hundred +pounds in two months, but has a present and pressing necessity for +forty. + +The governess fraud was ingenious. It was done in this way: An +advertisement appeared in the 'Times,' setting forth that an English +gentleman, travelling with his family abroad, wanted a governess--the +conditions liberal, the requirements of a high order. The family +in question, who mixed with the very best society on the Continent, +required that the governess should be a lady of accomplished manners, +and one in every respect qualified for that world of fashion to which +she would be introduced as a member of the advertiser's family. The +advertiser, however, found that all the English ladies who had hitherto +filled this situation in his family had, through the facilities thus +presented them of entrance into life, made very advantageous marriages; +and to protect himself against the loss entailed by the frequent call on +him for travelling expenses--bringing out new candidates for the hands +of princes and grand-dukes--he proposed that the accepted governess +should deposit with him a sum--say fifty pounds--equivalent to the +charge of the journey; and which, if she married, should be confiscated +to the benefit of her employer. + +The scheme was very ingenious; it was, in fact, a lottery in which you +only paid for your ticket when you had drawn a prize. Till the lucky +number turned up, you never parted with your money. Was there ever any +such bribe held forth to a generation of unmarried and marriageable +women? There was everything that could captivate the mind: the tour +on the Continent--the family who loved society and shared it so +generously--the father so parental in his kindness, and who evidently +gave the governess the benediction of a parent on the day she may have +married the count; and all secured for what--for fifty pounds? No; but +for the deposit, the mere storing up of fifty pounds in a strong box; +for if, after two years, the lady neither married nor wished to remain, +she could claim her money and go her way. + +The success was immense; and as the advertiser wrote replies from +different towns to different individuals, governesses arrived at +Brussels, at Coblentz, at Frankfort, at Mayence, at Munich, at Nice--and +heaven knows where besides--whose deposits were lodged in the hands of +N. F. That ingenious gentleman straightway departed, and was no more +seen, and only heard of when the distress and misery of these unhappy +ladies had found their way to the public press. The 'Times,' with all +that ability and energy it knows how to employ, took the matter up, +published some of the statements--very painful and pathetic they +were--of the unfortunate victims of this fraud, and gave more than +one "leader" to its exposure. Nor was the Government wanting in proper +activity. Orders were sent out from the Foreign Office to the different +legations and consulates abroad, to warn the police in the several +districts against the machinations of this artful scoundrel, should he +chance to be in their neighbourhood. Even more distinct instructions +were sent out to certain legations, by which R. N. F. could be arrested +on charges that would at least secure his detention till the law +officers had declared what steps could be taken in his behalf. It was +not the age of photography, but a very accurate description of the +man's appearance and address was furnished, and his lofty stature, +broad chest, burly look, and bushy whiskers--a shade between red and +auburn--were all duly posted in each Chancellerie of the Continent. + +For a while it seemed as if he lived in retirement--his late success +enabled this to be an "elegant retirement"--and it is said that he +passed it on the Lake of Como, in a villa near that of the once Queen +Caroline. There are traditions of a distinguished stranger--a man of +rank and a man of letters--who lived there estranged from all the +world, and deeply engaged in the education of his two sons. One of these +youths, however, not responding to all this parental devotion, involved +himself in some scrape, fled from his father's roof, and escaped into +Switzerland. N. F., as soon as he could rally from the first shock of +the news, hastened after, to bring him back, borrowing a carriage from a +neighbouring nobleman in his haste. With this he crossed the frontier +at Chiasso, but never to come back again. The coachman, indeed, brought +tidings of the sale of the equipage, which the illustrious stranger had +disposed of, thus quitting a neighbourhood he could only associate with +a sorrowful past, and a considerable number of debts into the bargain. +Another blank occurs here in history, which autobiography alone perhaps +could fill. It would be unfair and un-philosophical to suppose that +because we cannot trace him he was inactive: we might as reasonably +imply that the moon ceased to move when we lost sight of her. At all +events, towards the end of autumn of that last year of the war in the +Crimea, a stout, well-dressed, portly man, with an air of considerable +assurance, swaggered into the Chancellerie of her Majesty's Legation at +Munich, notwithstanding the representations of the porter, who would, +if he had dared, have denied him admittance, and asked, in a voice of +authority, if there were no letters there for Captain F. The gentleman +to whom the question was addressed was an attache of the Legation, and +at that time in "charge" of the mission, the Minister being absent. +Though young in years, F. could scarcely, in the length and breadth of +Europe, have fallen upon one with a more thorough insight into every +phase and form of those mysteries by which the F. category of men exist. +Mr L. was an actual amateur in this way, and was no more the man to be +angry with F. for being a swindler, than with Ristori for being Medea or +Macready being Macbeth. Not that he had the slightest suspicion at the +time of F.'s quality, as he assured him that there were no letters for +that name. + +"How provoking!" said the Captain, as he bit his lip. "They will be +so impatient in England," muttered he to himself, "and I know Sidney +Herbert is sure to blame _me_." Then he added aloud, "I am at a +dead-lock here. I have come from the Crimea with despatches, and +expected to find money here to carry me on to England; and these stupid +people at the War Office have forgotten all about it. Is it not enough +to provoke a saint?" + +"I don't know; I never was a saint," said the impassive attache. + +"Well, it's trying to a sinner," said F., with a slight laugh; for +he was one of those happy-natured dogs who are not indifferent to the +absurd side of even their own mishaps. "How long does the post take to +England?" + +"Three days." + +"And three back--that makes six; a week--an entire week." + +"Omitting Sunday," said the grave attache, who really felt an interest +in the other's dilemma. + +"All I can say is, it was no fault of mine," cried F., after a moment. +"If I am detained here through their negligence, they must make the +best excuse they can. Have you got a cigar?" This was said with his eyes +fixed on a roll of Cubans on the table. + +"Take one," said the other. + +"Thanks," said F., as he selected three. "I'll drop in to-morrow, and +hope to have better luck." + +"How much money do you want?" asked Mr L. + +"Enough to carry me to London." + +"How much is that?" + +"Let me see. Strasbourg--Paris, a day at Paris; Cowley might detain me +two days: fifteen or twenty pounds would do it amply." + +"You shall have it." + +"All right," said F., who walked to the fire, and, lighting his cigar, +smoked away; while the other took some notes from a table-drawer and +counted them. + +"Shall I give you a formal receipt for this?" asked F. + +"You can tell them at the Office," said L., as he dipped his pen into +the ink and continued the work he had been previously engaged in. F. +said a few civil words--the offhand gratitude of a man who was fully as +much in the habit of bestowing as of receiving favours, and withdrew. L. +scarcely noticed his departure; he was deep in his despatch, and wrote +on. At length he came to the happy landing-place, that spot of rest for +the weary foot--"I have the honour to be, my Lord," and he arose and +stood at the fire. + +As L. smoked his cigar he reflected, and as he reflected he remembered; +and, to refresh his memory, he took out some papers from a pigeon-hole, +and at last finding what he sought, sat down to read it. The document +was a despatch, dated a couple of years back, instructing H.M.'s +representative at the Court of Munich to secure the person of a certain +N. F., and hold him in durance till application should be made to the +Bavarian Government for his extradition and conveyance to England. Then +followed a very accurate description of the individual--his height, +age, general looks, voice, and manner--every detail of which L. now saw +closely tallied with the appearance of his late visitor. + +He pondered for a while over the paper, and then looked at his watch. It +was five o'clock! The first train to Augsburg was to start at six. There +was little time, consequently, to take the steps necessary to arrest a +person on suspicion; for he should first of all have to communicate +with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who should afterwards back his +application to the Prefect of Police. The case was one for detail, +and for what the Germans insist upon, much writing--and there was very +little time to do it in. L., however, was not one to be easily defeated. + +If baffled in one road, he usually found out another. He therefore +wrote a brief note to the Minister, stating that he might require his +assistance at a later hour of the evening, and at a time not usually +official. This done, he despatched another note to Captain E. F., saying +familiarly it was scarcely worth while trying to catch the mail-train +that night, and that perhaps instead he would come over and take a +_tete-a-tete_ dinner with him at the Legation. + +F. was overjoyed as he read it! No man ever felt a higher pleasure in +good company, nor knew better how to make it profitable. If he had been +asked to choose, he would infinitely rather have had the invitation to +dine than the twenty pounds he had pocketed in the morning. The cognate +men of the world--and all members of the diplomatic career are to a +certain extent in this category--were in F.'s estimation the "trump +cards" of the pack, with which he could "score tricks" innumerable, and +so he accepted at once; and, in a very few minutes after his acceptance, +made his appearance in a correct dinner-dress and a most unexceptionable +white tie. + +"Couldn't refuse that pleasant offer of yours, L." (he was familiar at +once, and called him L.), "and here I am!" said he, as he threw himself +into an easy-chair with all the bland satisfaction of one who looked +forward to a good dinner and a very enjoyable evening. + +"I am happy to have secured you," said L., with a little laugh to +himself at the epigram of his phrase. "Do you like caviar?" + +"Delight in it!" + +"I have just got some fresh from St Petersburg, and our cook here is +rather successful in his caviar soup. We have a red trout from the +_Tegen See_, a saddle of Tyrol mutton, and a pheasant--_voila votre +diner!_ but I can promise you a more liberal _carte_ in drinkables; just +say what you like in the way of wine!" + +F.'s face beamed over with ecstasy. It was one of the grand moments of +his life; and if he could, hungry as he was, he would have prolonged it! +To be there the guest of her Majesty's mission; to know, to feel, that +the arms of England were over the door! that he was to be waited on +by flunkies in the livery of the Legation, fed by the cook who had +ministered to official palates, his glass filled with wine from +the cellar of him who represented royalty! These were very glorious +imaginings; and little wonder that F., whose whole life was a Poem in +its way, should feel that they almost overcame him. In fact, like the +woman in the nursery song, he was ready to exclaim, "This is none of +me!" but still there were abundant evidences around him that all was +actual, positive, and real. + +"By the way," said L., in a light, careless way, "did you ever in your +wanderings chance upon a namesake of yours, only that he interpolates +another Christian name, and calls himself R. Napoleon F.?" + +The stranger started: the fresh, ruddy glow of his cheek gave way to +a sickly yellow, and, rising from his chair, he said, "Do you mean to +'split' on me, sir?" + +"I'm afraid, F.," said the other, jauntily, "the thing looks ugly. You +are R. N. F.!" + +"And are you, sir, such a scoundrel--such an assassin--as to ask a man +to your table in order to betray him?" + +"These are strong epithets, F., and I'll not discuss them; but if you +ask, Are you going to dine here today? I'd say, No. And if you should +ask, Where are, you likely to pass the evening? I'd hint, In the city +jail." + +At this F. lost all command over himself, and broke out into a torrent +of the wildest abuse. He was strong of epithets, and did not spare +them. He stormed, he swore, he threatened, he vociferated; but L., +imperturbable throughout all, only interposed with an occasional mild +remonstrance--a subdued hint--that his language was less than polite or +parliamentary. At length the door opened, two gendarmes appeared, and N. +F. was consigned to their hands and removed. + +The accusations against him were manifold; from before and since the day +of the governesses, he had been living a life of dishonesty and fraud. +German law proceedings are not characterised by any rash impetuosity; +the initial steps in F.'s case took about eighteen months, during which +he remained a prisoner. At the end of this time the judges discovered +some informality in his committal; and as L. was absent from Munich, +and no one at the Legation much interested in the case, the man was +liberated on signing a declaration--to which Bavarian authorities, +it would seem, attach value--that he was "a rogue and a vagabond;" +confessions which the Captain possibly deemed as absurd an act of +"surplusage" as though he were to give a written declaration that he was +a vertebrated animal and a biped. + +He went forth once more, and, difficult as it appears to the +intelligence of honest and commonplace folk, he went forth to prosper +and live luxuriously--so gullible is the world, so ready and eager to +be cheated and deceived. Sir Edward Lytton has somewhere declared that +a single number of the 'Times' newspaper, taken at random, would be +the very best and most complete picture of our daily life--the fullest +exponent of our notions, wants, wishes, and aspirations. Not a hope, nor +fear, nor prejudice--not a particle of our blind trustfulness, or of our +as blind unbelief, that would not find its reflex in the broadsheet. R. +N. F. had arrived at the same conclusion, only in a more limited sense. +The advertisement columns were all to him. What cared he for foreign +wars, or the state of the Funds? as little did he find interest in +railway intelligence, or "our own correspondent." What he wanted was, +the people who inquired after a missing relative--a long-lost son or +brother, who was supposed to have died in the Mauritius or Mexico: an +affectionate mother who desired tidings as to the burial-place of a +certain James or John, who had been travelling in a particular year in +the south of Spain: an inquirer for the will of Paul somebody: or +any one who could supply evidence as to the marriage of Sarah Meekins +_alias_ Crouther, supposed to have been celebrated before her Majesty's +Vice-Consul at Kooroobakaboo--these were the paragraphs that touched +him. + +Never was there such a union of intelligence and sympathy as in him! He +knew everybody, and seemed not alone to have been known to, but actually +beloved by, every one. It was in _his_ arms poor Joe died at Aden. _He_ +gave away Maria at Tunis. He followed Tom to his grave at Corfu; and he +was the mysterious stranger who, on board the P. and O. boat, offered +his purse to Edward, and was almost offended at being denied. The way in +which this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines +of a newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was +wanting in the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at once +into his attributions. + +A couple of years ago, an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, passed +a winter at Rome with her daughter, and in the mixed society of that +capital made acquaintance with a Polish Count of most charming manners +and fascinating address. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and +ended in an attachment which led to the marriage of the young lady with +the distinguished exile. + +On arriving in England, however, it was discovered that the accomplished +Count was a common soldier, and a deserter from the Prussian army; and +means were accordingly had recourse to in order to obtain a divorce, and +the breach of a marriage accomplished under a fraudulent representation. +While the proceedings were but in the initiative, there came a letter +from Oneglia, near Nice, to the afflicted mother of the young lady, +recalling to her mind the elderly gentleman with the blue spectacles who +usually sat next her at the English Church at Rome. He was the writer of +the present letter, who, in turning over the columns of the 'Times' read +the melancholy story of her daughter's betrayal and misery. By one of +those fortunate accidents more frequent in novels than in life, he had +the means of befriending her, and very probably of rescuing her from +her present calamity. He, the writer, had actually been present at the +wedding, and as a witness had signed the marriage-certificate of that +same _soi-disant_ Count Stanislaus Sobieski Something-or-other, at +Lemberg, in the year '49, and knew that the unhappy but deserted wife +was yet living. A certain momentary pressure of money prevented his +at once coming to England to testify to this fact; but if a small sum, +sufficient to pay a little balance he owed his innkeeper and wherewithal +to make his journey to England, were forwarded to the address of +Frederick Brooks, Esq., or lodged to his account at the Bank of French & +Co., Florence, he would at once hasten to London and depose formally +to every fact he had stated. By the merest accident I myself saw this +letter, which the lady had, for more accurate information about the +writer, sent to the banker at Florence, and in an instant I detected the +fine Roman hand of R. N. F. It is needless to say that this shot went +wide of the mark. + +But that this fellow has lived for upwards of twenty years, travelling +the Continent in every direction, eating and drinking at the best +hotels, frequenting theatres, cafes, and public gardens, denying himself +nothing, is surely a shame and a disgrace to the police of Europe, which +has been usually satisfied to pass him over a frontier, and suffer him +to continue his depredations on the citizens of another state. Of the +obloquy he has brought upon his own country I do not speak. We must, I +take it, have our scoundrels like other people; the only great grievance +here is, that the fellow's ubiquity is such that it is hard to believe +that the swindler who walked off with the five watches from Hamburg is +the same who, in less than eight days afterwards, borrowed fifty ducats +from a waiter at Naples, and "bolted." + +Of late I have observed he has dropped his second _prenom_ of Napoleon, +and does not call himself by it. There is perhaps in this omission a +delicate forbearance, a sense of refined deference to the other bearer +of that name, whom he recognises as his master. + +In the ingenuity of his manifold devices even religion has not escaped +him, and it would be impossible to count how often he has left the +"Establishment" for Rome, been converted, reconverted, reconciled, and +brought home again--always, be it noted, at the special charge of so +much money from the Church Fund, or a subscription from the faithful, +ever zealous and eager to assist a really devout and truly sincere +convert! + +That this man is an aspiring and ambitious vagabond may be seen in the +occasional raids he makes into the very best society, without having, at +least to ordinary eyes, anything to obtain in these ventures, beyond the +triumph of seeing himself where exposure and detection would be +certain to be followed by the most condign punishment. At Rome, for +instance--how, I cannot say--he obtained admission to the Duc de +Grammont's receptions; and at Florence, under the pretext of being +a proprietor, and "a most influential" one, of the 'Times,' he +breakfasted, by special invitation, with Baron Ricasoli, and had a long +and most interesting conversation with him as to the conditions--of +course political--on which he would consent to support Italian unity. +These must have been done in pure levity; they were imaginative +excursions, thrown off in the spirit of those fanciful variations great +violinists will now and then indulge in, as though to say, "Is there a +path too intricate for me to thread, is there a pinnacle too fine for me +to balance on?" + +A great deal of this fellow's long impunity results from the shame men +feel in confessing to have been "done" by him. Nobody likes the avowal, +acknowledging, as it does, a certain defect in discrimination, and a +natural reluctance to own to having been the dupe of one of the most +barefaced and vulgar rogues in Europe. + +There is one circumstance in this case which might open a very curious +psychological question; it is this: F.'s victims have not in general been +the frank, open, free-giving, or trustful class of men; on the contrary, +they have usually been close-fisted, cold, cautious people, who +weigh carefully what they do, and are rarely the dupes of their own +impulsiveness. F. is an Irishman, and yet his successes have been +far more with English--ay, even with Scotchmen--than with his own +countrymen. + +In part this may be accounted for by the fact that F. did not usually +present himself as one in utter want and completely destitute; his +appeal for money was generally made on the ground of some speculation +that was to repay the lender; it was because he knew "something to +your advantage" that he asked for that L10. He addressed himself, in +consequence, to the more mercantile spirit of a richer community--to +those, in fact, who, more conversant with trade, better understood the +meaning of an investment. + +But there was another, and, as I take it, a stronger and less fallible +ground for success. This fellow has, what all Irishmen are more or less +gifted with, an immense amount of vitality, a quality which undeniably +makes a man companionable, however little there may be to our taste in +his manner, his education, or his bearing. This same vitality imparts +itself marvellously to the colder temperaments of others, and gives out +its own warmth to natures that never of themselves felt the glow of an +impulse, or the glorious furnace-heat of a rash action. + +This was the magnetism he worked with. "Canny" Scotchmen and shrewd +Yankees--ay, even Swiss innkeepers--felt the touch of his quality. +There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, in its +apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, and +it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow so open and +unguarded. + +Now Paddy has seen a good deal of this at home, and could no more be +humbugged by it than he could believe a potato to be a truffle. + +F. was too perfect an artist ever to perform in an Irish part to an +Irish audience, and so he owes little or nothing to the land of his +birth. + +Apart from his unquestionable success, which of course settles the +question, I would not have called him a great performer--indeed, my +astonishment has always been how he succeeded, or with whom. + +"Don't tell me of Beresford's blunders," said the Great Duke after +Albuera. "Did he beat Soult? if so, he was a good officer." + +This man's triumphs are some twenty odd years of expensive living, with +occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines +on venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of +the galleys, and his diet the black bread of a convict. + +The injury these men do in life is not confined to the misery their +heartless frauds inflict, for the very humblest and poorest are often +their victims: they do worse, in the way they sow distrust and suspicion +of really deserving objects, in the pretext they afford the miserly man +to draw closer his purse-strings, and "not be imposed on;" and, worst of +all, in the ill repute they spread of a nation which, not attractive by +the graces of manner or the charms of a winning address, yet cherished +the thought that in truthfulness and fair dealing there was not one +could gainsay it. + +As I write, I have just heard tidings of R. N. F. One of our most +distinguished travellers and discoverers, lately returning from Venice +to the South, passed the night at Padua, and met there what he described +as an Indian officer--Major Newton--who was travelling, he said, with a +nephew of Lord Palmer-ston's. + +The Major was a man fall of anecdote, and abounded in knowledge of +people and places; he had apparently been everywhere with everybody, +and, with a communicativeness not always met with in old soldiers, gave +to the stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the +evening wore on, he told too how he was waiting there for a friend, +a certain N. F., who was no other than himself, the nephew of Lord +Palmerston being represented by his son, an apt youth, who has already +given bright promise of what his later years may develop. + +N. F. retired to bed at last, so much overcome by brandy-and-water that +my informant escaped being asked for a loan, which I plainly see he +would not have had the fortitude to have refused; and the following +morning he started so early that N. F., wide awake as he usually is, was +not vigilant enough to have anticipated. + +I hope these brief details, _pour servir a l'histoire de Monsieur R. N. +F._, may save some kind-hearted traveller from the designs of a thorough +blackguard, and render his future machinations through the press more +difficult to effect and more certain of exposure. + +I had scarcely finished this brief, imperfect sketch, when I read in +'Galignani' the following:-- + +"Swindling on the Continent.--A letter from Venice of March 29 gives us +the following piece of information which may still be of service to some +of our readers, though, from the fact with which it concludes, it +would seem that the proceedings, of the party have been brought to a +standstill, at least for some time. This is not, however, it may be +recollected, the first occasion we have had to bring the conduct of +the individual referred to under the notice of our readers for similar +practices:-- + +"'I am informed that one Mr Newton, _alias_ Neville, _alias_ Fane, and +with a dozen other _aliases_, has been arrested at Padua for swindling. +This ubiquitous gentleman has been travelling for some years at the +expense of hotel-keepers, and other geese easily fleeced, on the +Continent In the year 1862, Mr Neville and his two sons made their +suspicious appearance at Venice, and they now, minus the younger son, +have visited Padua as Mr Robert N. Newton and son, taking up their +residence at the Stella d'Oro. They arrived without luggage and without +money, both of which had been lost in the Danube; but they expected +remittances from India! The obliging landlord lent money, purchased +clothes, fed them gloriously, and contrived, between the 8th Feb. +and 25th of March, to become the creditor of Newton and son for 1000 +swanzig. The expenses continued, but the remittances never came. +The patient landlord began to lose that virtue, and denounced these +_aliases_ as swindlers. The police of Vienna, hearing of the event, sent +information that these two accommodating gentlemen had practised the +victimising art for two months in December last at the Hotel Regina +Inghilterre, at Pesth, run up a current account of 700 florins, and +decamped; and a hotel-keeper recognised the scamps as having re-resided +at the Luna, in Venice, in 1862, and "plucked some profit from that +pale-faced moon." Mr Newton's handwriting proved him to be in 1863 +one Major Fane, who had generously proposed to bring all his family, +consisting of ten persons, to pass the winter at the Barbesi Hotel at +Venice, if the proprietor would forward him 700 fr., as, owing to his +wife's prolonged residence at Rome and Naples, he was short of money, +which, however, he expected, would cease on the arrival of supplies from +Calcutta. These gentlemen are now in durance vile, and there is no +doubt but that this letter will lead to their recognition by many other +victims.'" + +Let no sanguine enthusiast for the laws of property imagine, however, +that this great man's career is now ended, and that R. N. F. will no +more go forth as of old to plunder and to rob. Imprisonment for debt is +a grievous violation of personal liberty certainly, but it is finite; +and some fine morning, when the lark is carolling high in heaven, and +the bright rivulets are laughing in the gay sunlight, R. N. F. will +issue from his dungeon to taste again the sweets of liberty, and to +partake once more of the fleshpots of some confiding landlord. F. is a +man of great resources, doubtless. When he repeats a part, he feels +the same sort of repugnance that Fechter would to giving a fiftieth +representation of Hamlet, but he would bow to the necessity which a +clamorous public imposes, however his own taste might rebel against the +dreariness of the task. Still, I feel assured that he will next appear +in a new part. We shall hear of him--that is certain. He will be in +search of a lost will, by which he would inherit millions, or a Salvator +Rosa that he has been engaged to buy for the Queen, or perhaps he will +be a missionary to assist in that religious movement now observable in +Italy. How dare I presume, in my narrow inventiveness, to suggest to +such a master of the art as he is? I only know that, whether he comes +before the world as the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, a proprietor of the +'Times,' the agent of Lord Palmerston, or a recent convert from Popery, +he will sustain his part admirably; and that same world that he has +duped, robbed, and swindled for more than a quarter of a century will +still feed and clothe him--still believe in the luggage that never +comes, and the remittance that will never turn up. + +After all, the man must be a greater artist than I was willing to +believe him to be. He must be a deep student of the human heart--not, +perhaps, in its highest moods; and he must well understand how to touch +certain chords which give their response in unlimited confidence and +long credit. + +No doubt there must be some wondrous fascination in these changeful +fortunes--these ups and downs of life--otherwise no man could have +gone, as he has, for nigh thirty years, hunted, badgered, insulted, +and imprisoned in almost every capital of Europe, and yet no sooner +liberated than, like a giant refreshed, he again returns to his old +toil, never weary wherever the bread of idleness can be eaten, and where +a lie will pay for his liquor. + +Talk of novel-writers--this is the great master of fiction--the man who +brings the product of imagination to the real test of credibility--the +actual interest of his public. Let him fail in his description, his +narrative, the progress of his events, or their probability, and he +is ruined at once. He must not alone arrange the circumstances of his +story, but he must perform the hero, and that, too, as we saw lately +at Padua, without any adventitious aid of dress or costume. I can fancy +what a sorry figure some of our popular tale-writers would present if +they had to appeal to an innkeeper with this poor story of their luggage +lost in the Danube. What a contempt the rascal must have had for Italian +notions of geography, too, when he adopted a river so remote from +where he stood! And yet I'd swear he was as cool, as collected, and as +self-sustained at that moment, as ever was Mr Gladstone in the House as +he rose to move a motion of supply. + +Well, he is in Padua now, doubtless dreaming of fresh conquests, and not +impossibly speculating on a world whose gullibility is indeed infinite, +and which actually seems to take the same pleasure in being cheated in +Fact as it does in being deceived in Fiction. Who knows if the time is +not coming when, instead of sending a box of new novels to the country, +some Mr Mudie will despatch one of these R. N. F. folk by a fast +train, with a line to say, "A great success: his Belgian rogueries most +amusing; the exploit at Madrid equal to anything in 'Gil Bias'." + + + + +GARIBALDI + +We had a very witty Judge in Ireland, who was not very scrupulous about +giving hard knocks to his brothers on the bench, and who, in delivering +a judgment in a cause, found that he was to give the casting-vote +between his two colleagues, who were diametrically opposed to each +other, and who had taken great pains to lay down the reasons for their +several opinions at considerable length. "It now comes to my turn," said +he, "to declare my view of this case, and fortunately I can afford to +be brief. I agree with my brother B. from the irresistible force of the +admirable argument of my brother M." + +The story occurred to me as I thought over Garibaldi and the +enthusiastic reception you gave him in England; for I really felt, if it +had not been for Carlyle, I might have been a bit of a hero-worshipper +myself The grand frescoes in caricature of the popular historian have, +however, given me a hearty and wholesome disgust to the whole thing; not +to say that, however enthusiastic a man may feel about his idol, he must +be sorely ashamed of his fellow-worshippers. "Lie down with dogs, and +you'll get up with fleas," says an old Irish adage; but what, in the +name of all entomology, is a man to get up with who lies down with these +votaries of Garibaldi? So fine a fellow, and so mangy a following, it +would be hard to find. The opportunity for all the blatant balderdash +of shopkeeping eloquence, of that high "Falootin" style so popular over +the Atlantic, of those grand-sounding periods about freedom and love +of country, was not to be lost by a set of people who, in all their +enthusiasm for Garibaldi, are intently bent on making themselves +foreground figures in the tableau that should have been filled by +himself alone. + +"Sir Francis Burdett call _you_ his friend!--as well call a Bug his +bedfellow!" said the sturdy old yeoman, whose racy English I should like +to borrow, to characterise the stupid incongruity between Garibaldi and +his worshippers. It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, +more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified, than the man +himself. His noble head; his clear, honest, brown eye; his finely-traced +mouth, beautiful as a woman's, and only strung up to sternness when +anything ignoble or mean had outraged him; and, last of all, his voice +contains a fascination perfectly irresistible, allied, as you knew and +felt these graces were, with a thoroughly pure, untarnished nature. The +true measure of the man lies in the fact that, though his life has been +a series of the boldest and most daring achievements, his courage is +about the very last quality uppermost in your mind when you meet him. +It is of the winning softness of his look and manner, his kind +thoughtfulness for others, his sincere pity for all suffering, his +gentleness, his modesty, his manly sense of brotherhood with the very +humblest of the men who have loved him, that you think: these are the +traits that throw all his heroism into shadow; and all the glory of the +conqueror pales before the simple virtues of the man. + +He never looked to more advantage than in that humble life of Caprera, +where people came and went--some, old and valued friends, whose presence +warmed up their host's heart; others, mere passing acquaintances, or, +as it might be, not even that; worshippers or curiosity-seekers--living +where and how they could in that many-roomed small house; diving into +the kitchen to boil their coffee; sallying out to the garden to pluck +their radishes; down to the brook for a cress, or to the seaside to +catch a fish,--all more or less busy in the midst of a strange +idleness; for there was not--beyond providing for the mere wants of the +day--anything to be done. The soil would not yield anything. There was +no cultivation outside that little garden, where the grand old soldier +delved, or rested on his spade-handle as he turned his gaze over the +sea, doubtless thinking of the dear land beyond it. + +At dinner--and what a strange meal it was--all met, full of the little +incidents of an uneventful day. The veriest trifles they were, but of +interest to those who listened, and to none more than Garibaldi himself, +who liked to hear who had been over to Maddalena, and what sport they +had; or whether Albanesi had taken any mullet, and who it was said he +could mend the boat? and who was to paint her? Not a word was spoken +of the political events of the world, and every mention of them was +as rigidly excluded as though a government spy had been seated at the +table. + +He rarely spoke himself, but was a good listener--not merely hearing +with attention, but showing, by an occasional suggestion or a hint, how +his mind speculated on the subject before him. If, however, led to speak +of himself or his exploits, the unaffected ease and simplicity of the +man became at once evident. Never, by any chance, would an expression +escape him that redounded to his own share in any achievement; +without any studied avoidance the matter would somehow escape, or, if +accidentally touched on, be done so very lightly as to make it appear of +no moment whatever. + +To have done one-tenth of what Garibaldi has done, a man must +necessarily have thrown aside scruples which he would never have +probably transgressed in his ordinary life. He must have been often +arbitrary, and sometimes almost cruel; and yet, ask his followers, and +they will tell you that punishment scarcely existed in the force under +his immediate command--that the most hardened offender would have +quailed more under a few stern words of reproof from "the General" than +from a sentence that sent him to a prison. + +That, to effect his purpose, he would lay hands on what he needed, not +recklessly or indifferently, but thoughtfully and doubtless regretfully, +we all know. I can remember an instance of this kind, related to me by +a British naval officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. "It was +off La Plata," said my informant, "when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, +that the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small +gun-brig of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never harassed his men by +exercises of gunnery, and, indeed, whose ship was as free from any 'beat +to quarters,' or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though +she had been a floating chapel. + +"Garibaldi came alongside me one day to say that he had learned the +Sardinian had several tons of powder on board, with an ample supply +of grape, shell, and canister, not to speak of twelve hundred stand of +admirable arms. 'I want them all,' said he; 'my people are fighting with +staves and knives, and we are totally out of ammunition. I want them, +and he won't let me have them.' + +"'He could scarcely do so,' said I, 'seeing that they belong to his +Government, and are not in _his_ hands to bestow.' + +"'For that reason I must go and take them,' said Garibaldi. 'I mean to +board him this very night, and you'll see if we do not replenish our +powder-flasks.' + +"'In that case,' said I, 'I shall have to fire on you. It will be +Piracy; nothing else.' + +"'You'll not do so;' said he, smiling. + +"'Yes, I promise you that I will. We are at peace and on good terms with +Sardinia, and I cannot behave other than as a friend to her ships of +war.' + +"'There's no help for it, then,' said Garibaldi, 'if you see the thing +in that light:' and good-humouredly quitted the subject, and soon after +took his leave." + +"And were you," asked I of my informant, Captain S.----"were you +perfectly easy after that conversation? I mean, were you fully satisfied +that he would not attempt the matter in some other way?" + +"Never more at ease in my life. I knew my man; and that, having left +me under the conviction he had abandoned the exploit, nothing on earth +would have tempted him to renew it in any shape." + +It might be a matter of great doubt whether any greater intellectual +ability would not have rather detracted from than increased Garibaldi's +power as a popular leader. I myself feel assured that the simplicity, +the trustfulness, the implicit reliance on the goodness of a cause as a +reason for its success, are qualities which no mere mental superiority +could replace in popular estimation. It is actually Love that is +the sentiment the Italians have for him; and I have seen them, +hard-featured, ay, and hard-natured men, moved to tears as the litter +on which Garibaldi lay wounded was carried down to the place of +embarkation. + +Garibaldi has always been a thoughtful, silent, reflective man, not +communicative to others, or in any way expansive; and from these +qualities have come alike his successes and his failures. Of the +conversations reported of him by writers I do not believe a syllable. He +speaks very little; and, luckily for him, that little only with those on +whose integrity he can rely not to repeat him. + +Cavour, who knew men thoroughly, and studied them just as closely as he +studied events, understood at once that Garibaldi was the man he wanted. +He needed one who should move the national heart--who, sprung from the +people himself, and imbued with all the instincts of his class, should +yet not dissever the cause of liberty from the cause of monarchy. To +attach Garibaldi to the throne was no hard task. The King, who led the +van of his army, was an idol made for such worship as Garibaldi's. The +monarch who could carry a knapsack and a heavy rifle over the cliffs +of Monte Rosa from sunrise to sunset, and take his meal of hard bread +before he "turned in" at night in a shepherd's shieling, was a King +after the bold buccaneer's own heart. + +To what end inveigh against the luxuries of a court, its wasteful +splendours, or its costly extravagance, with such an example? This +strong-sinewed, big-boned, unpoetical King has been the hardest nut ever +republicanism had to crack! + +It might be possible to overrate the services Garibaldi has rendered +to Italy--it would be totally impossible to exaggerate those he has +rendered the Monarchy; and out of Garibaldi's devotion to Victor +Emmanuel has sprung that hearty, honest, manly appreciation of the King +which the Italians unquestionably display. A merely political head of +the State, though he were gifted with the highest order of capacity, +would have disappeared altogether from view in the sun-splendour of +Garibaldi's exploits; not so the King Victor Emmanuel, who only shone +the brighter in the reflected blaze of the hero who was so proud to +serve him. + +Yet for all that friendship, and all the acts that grew out of it, +natural and spontaneous as they are, one great mind was needed to guide, +direct, encourage, or restrain. It was Cavour who, behind the scenes, +pulled all the wires; and these heroes--heroes they were too--were but +his puppets. + +Cavour died, and then came Aspromonte. + +If any other man than Garibaldi had taken the present moment to make +a visit--an almost ostentatious visit--to Mazzini, it might be a grave +question how far all the warm enthusiasm of this popular reception could +be justified. Garibaldi is, however, the one man in Europe from whom +no one expects anything but impulsive action. It is in the very +unreflectiveness of his generosity that he is great. There has not been, +I am assured, for many years back, any very close or intimate friendship +between these two men; but it was quite enough that Mazzini was in +trouble and difficulty, to rally to his side that brave-hearted +comrade who never deserted his wounded. Nor is there in all Garibaldi's +character anything finer or more exalted than the steadfast adherence he +has ever shown to his early friendships. No flatteries of the great--no +blandishments of courts and courtiers--none of those seductive +influences which are so apt to weave themselves into a man's nature when +surrounded by continual homage and admiration--not any of these have +corrupted that pure and simple heart; and there is not a presence +so exalted, nor a scene of splendour so imposing, as could prevent +Garibaldi from recognising with eager delight any the very humblest +companion that ever shared hardship and danger beside him. + +To have achieved his successes, a man must of necessity have rallied +around him many besides enthusiasts of the cause; he must have recruited +amongst men of broken fortunes--reckless, lawless fellows, who accepted +the buccaneer's life as a means of wiping off old scores with that old +world "that would have none of them." It was not amidst the orderly, the +soberly-trained, and well-to-do that he could seek for followers. And +what praise is too great for him who could so inspire this mass, heaving +with passion as it was, with his own noble sentiments, and make them +feel that the work before them--a nation's regeneration--was a task too +high and too holy to be accomplished by unclean hands? Can any eulogy +exaggerate the services of a man who could so magnetise his fellow-men +as to associate them at once with his nobility of soul, and elevate them +to a standard little short of his own? That he _did_ do this we have the +proof. Pillage was almost unknown amongst the Garibaldians; and these +famished, ill-clad, shoeless men marched on from battle to battle +with scarcely an instance of crime that called for the interference of +military law. + +Where is the General who could boast of doing as much? Where is the +leader who could be bold enough to give such a pledge for his followers? +Is there an army in Europe--in the world--for whom as much could be +said? + +All honour, therefore, to the man--not whose example only, but whose +very contact suggests high intent and noble action. All honour to +him who brings to a great cause, not alone the dazzling splendour +of heroism, but the more enduring brightness of a pure and unsullied +integrity! + +Such a man may be misled; he can never be corrupted. + + + + +A NEW INVESTMENT. + +I am not so sure how far we ought to be grateful for it, but assuredly +the fact is so, that nothing has so much tended to show the world with +what little wisdom it is governed than the Telegraph. It is not merely +that cabinets are no longer the sole possessors of early intelligence, +though this alone was once a very great privilege; and there is no +over-estimating the power conferred by the exclusive possession of +a piece of important news--a battle won or lost, the outbreak of a +revolution, the overthrow of a throne--even for a few hours before it +became the property of the public. The telegraph, however, is the great +disenchanter. The misty uncertainty, the cloud-like indistinctness that +used of old to envelop all ministerial action, converting Downing +Street into a sort of Olympus, and making a small mythology out of +Precis-writers, is all gone, all dispersed. Three or four cold hard +lines, thin and terse as the wire that conveyed them, are sworn enemies +to all style, and especially to all the evasive cajoleries of those +dissolving views of events diplomacy loves to revel in. What becomes of +the graceful drapery in which statesmen used to clothe the great facts +of the world, when a simple despatch, "fifteen words, exclusive of +the address," tells the whole story? and when we have read that "the +insurgents are triumphant everywhere, the king left the capital at four +o'clock, a provisional government was proclaimed this morning," and +suchlike, what do we care for the sonorous periods in which official +priestcraft chants the downfall of a dynasty? + +The great stronghold of statecraft was, however, Speculation--I mean +that half-prophetic view of events which we always conceded to those +who looked over the world from a higher window than ourselves. What +has become of this now? Who so bold as to predict what, while he is yet +speaking, may be contradicted? who is there hardy enough to forecast +what the events of the last half-hour may have falsified, and five +minutes more will serve to publish to the whole world? + +It may be amusing to read the comments of the speech or the leading +article, but the "despatch" is the substance: and however clever the +variations, the original melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine +to himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of +all its incidents--how insupportable would the slow procession of events +become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort +of Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded +those who differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat +below the "gangway." There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic +devices of those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many +men are their own priests, their lawyers, and their doctors, and where, +certes, each man is his own prophet. + +These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I +took yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our +diplomatists--one of those men who seem to weld into their happy natures +all the qualities which make good companionship, and blend with the +polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep +reflectiveness of a man of the world--a man to whom nothing comes wrong, +and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his element +at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands. + +"I say, O'Dowd," cried he, after a pause of some time in our +conversation, "has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires +are destined to be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within +a very few years neither of our occupations will have a representative +left? Take my word for it," said he, more solemnly, "in less than +ten years from the present date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as +a posthorse, and a post-shay not more a curiosity than a +minister-plenipotentiary." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"I am certain of it. People nowadays won't travel eight miles an hour, +or be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they've happened. Life +is too short for all this now, and, as we can't lengthen our days, we +must shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman +Mathews used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, 'Let me +have some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.' Have you ever +thought seriously on the matter?" + +"Never," said I. + +"You ought, then," said he. "I tell you again, we are all in the same +category with flint locks and wooden ships--we belong to the past. Don't +you know it? Don't you feel it?" + +"I don't like to feel it," said I, peevishly. + +"Nonsense!" cried he, laughing. "Self-deception does nothing in the +matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a 'smooth-Bore.' +What 'our own correspondent' represents, I leave to your own modesty." + +"It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge," +said I, gloomily. + +"Of course it will, but there's no help for it. Old novels go to the +trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-balls in +the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also? +At all events, I have a scheme for our transition state--a plan I have +long revolved in my mind--and there's certainly something in it. + +"First of all realise it, as the Yankees say, that neither a government +nor a public will want either of us. When the wires have told that +the Grand-Duke Strong-grog-enofif was assassinated last night, or that +Prince Damisseisen has divorced his wife and married a milliner, +Downing Street and Printing-house Square will agree that all the moral +reflections the events inspire can be written just as well in Piccadilly +as from a palace on the Neva, or a den on the Danube. Gladstone will be +the better pleased, and take another farthing off 'divi-divi,' or some +other commodity in general use and of universal appreciation. Don't you +agree to that?" + +"I don't know." + +"You don't know," drawled he out, in mimicry of my tone: "are you so +conceited about your paltry craft that you fancy the world cares for the +manner of it, or that there is really any excellence in the cookery? +Not a bit of it, man. We are bores both of us; and what's worse--far +worse--we are bygones. Can't you see that when a man buys a canister +of prepared beef-tea, he never asks any one to pour on the boiling +water--he brews his broth for himself? This is what people do with +the telegrams. They don't want you or me to come in with the kettle: +besides, all tastes are not alike; one man may like his Bombardment of +Charleston weaker; another might prefer his Polish Massacre more highly +flavoured. This is purely a personal matter. How can you suit the +capricious likings of the million, and of the million--for that's the +worst of it--the million that don't want you? What a practical rebuke, +besides, to prosy talkers and the whole long-winded race, the sharp, +short tap of the telegraph! Who would listen to a narrative of Federal +finance when he has read 'Gold at 204--Chase rigged the market'? Who +asks for strategical reasons in presence of 'Almighty whipping--lost +eighty thousand--Fourth Michigan skedaddled '? + +"How graphic will description become--how laconic all comment! You will +no more listen to one of the old circumlocutionary conversers than you +would travel by the waggon, or make a voyage in a collier. + +"How, I would ask, could the business of life go on in an age active as +ours if all coinage was in copper, and vast transactions in money should +be all conducted in the base metal? Imagine the great Kings of Finance +counting over the debts of whole nations in penny-pieces, and you have +at once a picture of what, until a few years ago, was our intellectual +condition. How nobly Demosthenic our table-talk will be!--how grandly +abrupt and forensic! + +"There is nothing, however, over which I rejoice more than in the +utter extinction of the anecdote-mongers--the insufferable monsters +who related Joe Millers as personal experiences, or gave you their own +versions of something in the morning papers. Thank heaven they are done +for! + +"Last of all, the unhappy man who used to be sneered at for his silence +in company, will now be on a par with his fellows. The most bashful will +be able to blurt out, 'Poles massacred,' 'Famine in Ireland,' 'Feast at +the Mansion House,' 'Collision at Croydon,' 'Bank discount eleven.' + +"Who will dare to propagate scandal, when all amplification is denied +him? How much adulteration will the liquor bear which is measured by +drop? Nor will the least of our benefits be the long, reflective +pauses--those brilliant 'flashes of silence' which will supersede the +noise, turmoil, and confusion of what we used to call conversation. No, +no, Corneli mi. The game is up. 'Our own Correspondent' is a piece that +has run its course, and there's nothing to do but take a farewell +benefit and quit the boards." + +"If I could fall back on my pension like you, I'd perhaps take the +matter easier," said I, gruffly. + +"Well, I think you ought to be pensioned. If I was a Minister, I'd +propose it. My notion is this: The proper subjects for pension are those +who, if not provided for by the State, are likely to starve. They are, +consequently, the class of persons who have devoted their lives to +an unmarketable commodity--such as poonah-painting, Berlin-wool work, +despatch-writing, and suchlike. I'd include 'penny-a-lining'--don't be +offended because you get twopence, perhaps. I'd pension the whole of +them--pretty much as I'd buy off the organ-man, and request him to move +on." + +"As, however," said I, "we are not fortunate enough to figure in the +Estimates, may I ask what is the grand scheme you propose for our +employment?" + +"I'm coming to it. I'd have reached it ere this, if you had not required +such a positive demonstration of your utter uselessness. You have +delayed me by what Guizot used to call 'an obstructive indisposition to +believe.'" + +"Go on; I yield--that is, under protest." "Protest as much as you like. +In diplomacy a protest means, 'I hope you won't; but if you will, I +can't help it,' _Vide_ the correspondence about the annexation of Nice +and Savoy. Now to my project. It is to start a monster hotel--one of +those gigantic establishments for which the Americans are famous--in +some much-frequented part of Europe, and to engage as part of the +household all the 'own time' celebrities of diplomacy and letters. Every +one knows--most of us have, indeed, felt--the desire experienced to see, +meet, and converse with the noticeable men of the world--the people who, +so to say, leave their mark on the age they live in--the cognate +signs of human algebra. Only fancy, then, with what ecstasy would the +traveller read the prospectus of an establishment wherein, as in a +pantheon, all the gods were gathered around him. What would not the +Yankee give for a seat at a table where the great Eltchi ladled out the +soup, and the bland-voiced author of 'The Woman in White' lisped out, +'Sherry, sir?' Only imagine being handed one's fish by the envoy +that got us into the Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the +accomplished writer of 'Orley Farm'! Picture a succession of celebrities +in motion around the table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious +sentiment of the man that could say, 'Lyons, a little more fat;' +or, 'Carlyle, madeira;' and imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so +gracefully handed you by 'Lost and Saved,' and the culminating pride of +taking your flat candlestick from the fingers of 'Eleanor's Victory.' + +"Who would not cross the great globe to live in such an atmosphere of +genius and grandeur? for if there be, as there may, souls dead to +the charms of literary greatness, who in this advanced age of ours is +indifferent to the claims of high rank and station and title? Fancy +sending a K.C.B. to call a cab, or ordering a special envoy to fetch the +bootjack! I dare not pursue the theme. I cannot trust myself to dwell +on a subject so imbued with suggestiveness--all the varying and wondrous +combinations such a galaxy of splendour and power would inevitably +produce. What wit, what smartness, what epigram would abound! What +a hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms +and profound reflections! How I see with my mind's eye the literary +traveller trying to overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they +wash up their glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with +a cigar, well knowing his charming article on Dickens. + +"The class-writers would of course have their specialties. +'Soapy-Sponge' would figure in the stable-yard, and 'Proverbial +Philosophy' watch the trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be +obtained for a room in such an establishment, and every place at the +_table-d'hote_ should be five guineas at least. For, after all, +what would be an invitation to Compiegne to a sojourn here? Material +advantages might possibly incline to the side of the Imperial board; but +would any one presume to say that the company in the one was equal to +the 'service' at the other? Who would barter the glorious reality of +the first for the mean and shallow mockery of the last? Last of all, how +widespread and powerful would be the influence of such an establishment +over the manners of our time! Would Cockneyism, think you, omit its +H's in presence of that bland individual who offers him cheese? Would +presumption dare to criticise in view of that 'Quarterly' man who is +pouring out the bitter beer? What a check on the expansive balderdash of +the 'gent' at his dessert to know and feel that 'Adam Bede' was behind +him! + +"Would Brown venture on that anecdote of Jones if the napkin-in-hand +listener should be an ex-envoy renowned for his story-telling? Who +would break down in his history, enunciate a false quantity, misquote a +speech, or mistake the speaker, in such hearing? Some one might object +to the position and to the functions I assign to persons of a certain +distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act +as a hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I +confess I do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we +are pleased to call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, +and that the man who feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, +capacity, and attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior +in station and condition, has within his heart a pride all the more +exalting that it is stimulated by the sense of a great injustice, and +the profound consciousness that it is to himself, to his own nature, he +must look to redress the balance that fortune would set against him. + +"In the brilliant conversation of the servants' hall, then, would these +many gifted men take their revenge; and what stores of good stories, +what endless drolleries, what views of life, and what traits of +character, would they derive from the daily opportunities! It has +constantly been remarked by foreigners that there is no trait of +our national manners less graceful in itself than the way in which +inferiors, especially menials, are addressed in England. It is alleged, +perhaps with some truth, that we mark every difference of class more +decisively than other nations; and certainly in our treatment of +servants there is none of that same confidential tone so amusing in a +French vaudeville. The scheme I now suggest will be the effective remedy +for this. + +"Will Jones, think you, presume to be imperative if it be Alfred +Tennyson who has brought up his hot water? Will Brown be critical about +the polish, if it be Owen Meredith has taken him his boots? Will even +Snooks cry out, 'Holloa, you fellow!' to a passing waiter, if the +individual so addressed might chance to be an Oriental Secretary or a +Saturday Reviewer? + +"And would the most infatuated of Bagmen venture on what O'Connell used +to call a 'chuck-under-the-chin manner,' were the chamber-maid to be +Margaret Maitland? + +"Such, in brief, is my plan, O'Dowd; nor is the least of its advantages +that it gets rid of the Pension List, and that beggarly L1200 a-year by +which wealthy England assumes to aid the destitute sons and daughters +of letters. As for myself, I have fixed on my station. I mean to be +swimming-master, and the prospectus shall announce that His Excellency +the late Minister at the Court of-----ducks ladies every morning from +eight till nine. Think over the project, and drop me a hint as to the +sort of place would suit you." + + + + +ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. + +My diplomatic friend is rarely very serious in his humour; this morning, +however, he was rather disposed that way, and so I took the opportunity +to question him about Italy, a country where he has lived long, and +whose people he certainly understands better than most Englishmen. I +gathered from him that he considered the English were thoroughly +well informed on Italy, but in the most hopeless ignorance as to the +Italians. "As for the house and the furniture, you know it all." said +he; "but of the company you know positively nothing." + +Byron understood them better than any other Englishman. He had his +admission _par la petite porte_--that is, he gained his knowledge +through his vices; and the Italians were so flattered to see a great +Milor adapt himself so readily to their lax notions and loose morality +that they grew frank and open with him. + +His pretended--I suppose it was only pretended--dislike to England +disarmed them, too, of all distrust of him; and for the first time they +felt themselves judged by a man who did not think Charing Cross finer +than the Piazza del Popolo. + +Byron's rank and station gained him a ready acceptance where the masses +of our travelling countrymen would not be received; for the Italians +love rank, and respect all its gradations. Even the republics were great +aristocracies; and in all their imitations of France they have never +affected "equality." They love splendour too, and display; and in all +their festivals you see something like an effort to recall a time when +their cities were the grandest and their citizens the proudest in all +Europe. + +They are a very difficult people to understand. There are not so many +salient points in the Italian as in the German or the Frenchman; his +character is not so strongly accented; his traits are finer--his shades +of temperament more delicate. + +Besides this, there is another difficulty: one is immensely aided in +their appreciation of a people by their lighter drama, which is in a +measure a reflex of the daily sayings and doings of those who listen to +it. Now the Italians have no comedy, or next to none; so barren are they +in this respect, that more than once have I asked myself, Can there be +any domesticity in a nation which has not mirrored itself on the stage? +What sort of a substance can that be that never had a shadow? + +The immortal Goldoni, as they print him in all the play-bills, is +ineffably stupid, his characters ill drawn, his plots meagre, and his +dialogue as flat as the talk of a three-volume novel. The only palpable +lesson derivable from him is, that all ranks and classes stand pretty +much on an equality, and that as regards modes of expression the count +and his coachman are precisely on a level. There is scarcely a trait of +humour in these pieces--never, by any accident, anything bordering on +wit. The characters talk the veriest commonplaces, and announce the most +humdrum intentions in phraseology as flat and wearisome. + +Now you will ask, perhaps, Is this a fair type of the present-day +habits--are the Italians of our time like those of Goldoni's? My reply +would be, that it would be difficult to imagine a people who have +changed less within a century. The same small topics, the same petty +interests engage them. They display the same ardent enthusiasm about +trifles, and the same thorough indifference to great things, as their +grandfathers; and they are marvellously like the dreary puppets that the +immortal dramatist has given us as their representatives. + +It has been reproached to Sheridan, that no people in real life ever +displayed such brilliancy in conversation as the characters in the +'School for Scandal;' and tame as Goldoni reads, I verily believe his +dialogue is rather above the level of an Italian salon. + +The great interests of Life, the game of politics, the contests and +reverses of party, literature in its various forms, and the sports of +the field, form topics which make the staple of our dinner-talk. Instead +of these the Italians have their one solitary theme--the lapses of their +neighbours, the scandals of the small world around them. Not that they +are uncharitable or malevolent; far from it. They discuss a frailty as a +board of physicians might a malady, and without the slightest thought of +imputing blame to "the patient." They have now and then a hard word for +an unfortunate husband, but even him they treat rather as one ignorant +of conventional usages and the ways of the polite world, than as a man +radically bad or cruel. + +They have in their blood the old Greek sensitiveness to suffering, +and they dislike painful scenes and disastrous catastrophes; and +this sentiment they carry to extremes. Although they have the finest +representative of Othello--Salvini--at this moment in Europe, the +terrible scene of the murder of Desdemona is a shock that many would +shrink from witnessing. They will bear any strain on the imagination, +but their fine-strung nerves revolt against the terrible in action. +To this natural refinement is owing much of that peculiar softness of +manner and reluctance to disoblige which foreigners frequently mistake +for some especial desire to win their favour. + +The idleness which would make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on +the Italian. He knows how to "do nothing" with dignity. Be assured, if +Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him +down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went through his +tomfoolery gracefully. + +And with all this, is it not strange that these are the people who +furnish the most reckless political enthusiasts of the world, and who, +year after year, go to the scaffold for "an idea"? There is something +hysterical in this Italian nature, which prompts to paroxysms like +these--some of that impulsive fury which, in the hill-tribes of India, +sends down hordes of fanatics to impale themselves on British bayonets. +The men like Orsini abound--calm of look, mild of speech, and gentle in +manner, and yet ready to commit the greatest of crimes and confront the +most terrible of deaths for a mere speculative notion--the possibility +of certain changes producing certain contingencies, and of which other +changes are to ensue, and Italy become something that she never was +before, nor would the rest of Europe suffer her to remain, if ever she +attained to it. + +Wine-tasters tell us it is vain to look for a bottle of unadulterated +port: I should in the same way declare that there are few rarer things +to be found than a purely Italian society. The charm of their glorious +climate; the beauty of their country, the splendour of their cities, +rich in centuries of associations, have attracted strangers from every +corner of the Old World and the New; and the salons of Italy are but +caravanserais, where all nations meet and all tongues are spoken. + +The Italians like this; it flatters national pride, and it suits +national indolence. The outer barbarians from the Neva or the Thames +have fine houses and give costly entertainments. Their sterner looks and +more robust habits are meet subject for the faint little jests that are +bandied in some _patois_; and each thinks himself the superior of his +neighbour. But as for the home life of these people, who has seen +it? What is known of it? Into that long, lofty, arched-ceilinged +drawing-room, lighted by its one lamp, where sits the Signora with +her daughter and the grimy-looking, ill-shaven priest, there is not, +perhaps, much temptation to enter, nor is the conversation of a kind +one would care to join in; and there is but this, and the noisy, almost +riotous, reception after the opera, where a dozen people are contending +at "Lansquenet," while one or perhaps two thump the piano, and some +three or four shout rather than sing the last popular melody of the +season, din being accepted as gaiety, and a clamour that would make +deafness a blessing being taken for the delight of a charmed assembly. + +I have been told that Cavour once said, that no great change would be +accomplished in Italy till the Italians introduced the public-school +system of England. So long as the youth of the country were given up +for education to the priests--the most illiterate, narrow-minded, and +bigoted class in Europe--so long would they carry with them through life +the petty prejudices of their early days; or, in emancipating themselves +from these, fall into a scepticism whose baneful distrust would damp +the ardour of all patriotism, and sap the strength of every high and +generous emulation. As the great statesman said, "I want Italians to be +Italians, and not to be bad Frenchmen." + +With a Peninsular Eton or Rugby at work, who is to say what might not +come of a people whose intellectual qualities are unquestionably +so great? The system which imparts to boys the honourable sense of +responsibility, the high value of truthfulness, the scorn of all that is +mean,--this is what is wanting here. Let the Italian start in life with +these, and it would not be easy to set limits to what his country may +become in greatness. + +I have never heard of a people with so little self-control; and their +crimes are, in a large majority of cases, the results of some passionate +impulse rather than of a matured determination to do wrong. It is by no +means uncommon to find that your butler or your coachman has taken to +his bed ill of a _rabbia_, as they call it--a fit of passion, in plain +words, brought on by a reproof he has considered unjust. This same +_rabbia_ is occasionally a serious affair. Some short time ago, an +actor, who was hissed off the stage at Turin, went home and died of it; +and within a very few weeks, a case occurred in Florence which would +be laughable if it had not terminated so tragically. One of the new +guardians of the public safety, habited in a strange travestie of an +English police-costume, was followed through the streets by a crowd of +boys, who mocked and jeered him on his dress. Seeing that he resented +their remarks with temper, they only became more aggressive, and at last +went so far as to pursue him through the city with yells and cries. The +man, overcome with passion, got _rabbia_, and died. Ridicule is the one +thing no Italian can bear. When you lose temper with an Italian, and +give way to any show of violence before him, he is triumphant; his cheek +glows, his eye brightens, his chest expands, he sees he has you at a +disadvantage, and regards you as one who in a moment of passion has +thrown his cards on the table and exposed his hand. After this it is +next to impossible to regain your position before him. If you be +calm, however, and if, besides being calm, you can be sarcastic, he is +overcome at once. + +It is a rare thing--one of the rarest--to see this weapon employed in +the debates; but when it does occur, it is ever successful. The fact +is, that Wit, which forms the subtlety of other nations, is not subtle +enough for the Italian; and the edge that cuts so cleanly elsewhere +makes a jagged wound with them. + +After all, they are very easy to live with. If the social atmosphere +is not very stimulating or invigorating, it is easy to breathe, and +pleasant withal; and one trait of theirs is not without its especial +merit--they are less under the control of conventionalities than any +people I ever heard of, and consequently have few affectations. If they +do assume any little part, or play off any little game, it is with the +palpable object of a distinct gain by it; never is it done for personal +display or individual glory. There are no more snobs in Italy than +there are snakes in Iceland; and that, after all, is, as the world goes, +saying something for a people. + +Of all the nations of Europe, I know of none, save Italy, in which the +characters are the same in every class and gradation. The appeal you +would make to the Italian noble must be the same you would address to +the humble peasant on his property. The point of view is invariably +identical; the sympathies are always alike. No matter what differences +education may have instituted and habits implanted, the nobleman and his +lackey think and feel and reason alike. Separate them how you will in +station, and they will still approach the consideration of any subject +in the same spirit, and regard it with the same hopes and fears, the +same expectations and distrusts. To this trait, of whose existence +Cavour well knew, was owing the marvellous unanimity in the nation on +the last war with Austria. The appeal to the prince could be addressed, +and was addressed, to the peasant. There was not an argument that spoke +to the one which was not re-echoed in the heart of the other. In fact, +the chain that binds the social condition of Italy is shorter than +elsewhere, and the extreme links are less remote from each other than +with most nations of Europe. + +Every Italian is a conspirator, whether the question be the gravest +or the lightest; all must be done in it ambiguously--secretly-- +mysteriously. Whatever is conducted openly is deemed to be done +stupidly. To take a house, buy a horse, or hire a servant without the +intervention of another man to disparage the article, chaffer over the +price, and disgust the vendor, is an act of impetuous folly. "Why didn't +you tell _me!_" says your friend, "that you wished to have that villa? +My coachman is half-brother to the wife of the _fattore_. I could have +learned everything that could be urged against its convenience, and +learned, besides, what peculiar pressure for money affected the owner." +Besides this, everything must be done as though by mere hazard: you +really never knew there was a house there, never noticed it; you even +sneer at the taste of the man who selected the spot, and wonder "what he +meant by it." In nine cases out of ten the other party is not deceived +by this skirmishing; he fires a little blank-cartridge too, and so goes +on the engagement. All have great patience; life, at least in Italy, is +quite long enough for all this; no one is overburdened with business; +the days are usually wearisome, and the theatres are only open of an +evening! + +It is, besides, so pleasant and so interesting to the Italian to pit +his craft against another man's, and back his own subtlety against his +neighbour's. It is a sort of gambling of which he never wearies; for +the game is one that demands not merely tact, address, and cunning, +but face, voice, manner, and bearing. It is temperament. Individuality +itself is on the table; and so is it, that you may assume it as certain +that the higher organisation will invariably rise the winner. + +Imagine Bull in such a combat, and you have a picture of the most +hopeless incapacity. He frets, fumes, storms, and sulks; but what avails +it? he is "done" in the end; but he is no more aware that the struggle +he has been engaged in is an intellectual one, than was the Bourgeois +Gentilhomme conscious that he had been for forty years "talking prose." + +The Priest was doubtless the great originator of all this mechanism +of secrecy and fraud. For centuries the Church has been the Tyrant of +Italy. The whole fate and fortunes of families depended on the will of +a poor, ill-clad, ignoble-looking creature, who, though he sat at meals +with the master, ate and talked like a menial. To this man was known +everything--all that passed beneath the roof. Not alone was he aware of +the difficulties, the debts, the embarrassments of the family, but to +him were confided their feelings, their shortcomings, their sorrows, and +it might be their shame. From him there was nothing secret; and he sat +there, in the midst of them, a sort of Fate, wielding the power of one +who knew every spring and motive that could stir them, every hope that +could thrill, every terror that could appal them. There was no escape +from him--cold, impassive spectator of good or evil fortune, without one +affection to attach him to life, grimly watching the play of passions +which made men his slaves, and only interested by the exercise of a +power that degraded them. The layman could not outwit him, it is true, +but he could steal something of the craft that he could not rival. This +he has done; how he has employed it any one can at least imagine who has +had dealings in Italy. + + + + +THE DECLINE OF WHIST. + +What is the reason of the decline of Whist? Why is it that every year we +find fewer players, and less proficiency in those who play? It is a far +graver question than it may seem at first blush, and demands an amount +of investigation much deeper than I am able to give it here. + +Of course I am prepared to hear that people nowadays are too +accomplished and too intellectual to be obliged to descend for their +pastime to a mere game at cards; that higher topics engage and higher +interests occupy them; that they read and reflect more than their +fathers and grandfathers did; and that they would look down with disdain +upon an intellectual combat where the gladiators might be the last +surviving veterans of a bygone century. + +Now, if the conversational tone of our time were pre-eminently +brilliant--if people were wiser, wittier, more amusing, and more +instructive than formerly--if we lived in an age of really good +talkers,--I might assent to the force of this explanation; but what is +the truth? Ours is, of all the times recorded by history, the dullest +and dreariest: rare as whist-players are, pleasant people are still +rarer. It is not merely that the power of entertaining is gone, but so +has the ambition. Nobody tries to please, and the success is admirable! +It is fashionable to be stupid, and we are the most modish people in the +universe. It is absurd, then, in a society whose interchange of thought +is expressed in monosyllables, and a certain haw-haw dreariness pervades +all intercourse, to say that people are above Whist. Why, they are below +Push-pin! + +It would be sufficient to point to the age when Whist was most in vogue, +to show that it flavoured a society second to none in agreeability; and +who were the players? The most eminent divines, the greatest ministers, +the most profound jurists, the most subtle diplomatists. What an +influence a game so abounding in intellectual teaching must have +exercised on the society where it prevailed, can scarcely be computed. +Blackstone has a very remarkable passage on the great social effect +produced upon the Romans by their popular games; and he goes so far as +to say that society imbibes a vast amount of those conventionalities +which form its laws, from an Tin-conscious imitation of the rules which +govern its pastimes. Take our own time, and I ask with confidence, +should we find such want of purpose as our public men exhibit, such +uncertainty, such feebleness, and such defective allegiance to party, +in a whist-playing age? Would men be so ready as we see them to renounce +their principles, if they bore fresh in their mind all the obloquy that +follows "a revoke"? Would they misquote their statistics in face of the +shame that attends on "a false score"? Would they be so ready to assert +what they know they must retract, if they had a recent recollection of +being called on "to take down the honours"? + +Think, then, of the varied lessons--moral as well as mental--that the +game instils; the caution, the reserve, the patient attention, the +memory, the deep calculation of probabilities, embracing all the rules +of evidence, the calm self-reliance, and the vigorous daring that shows +when what seems even rashness may be the safest of all expedients. +Imagine the daily practice of these gifts and faculties, and tell me, +if you can, that he who exercises them can cease to employ them in his +everyday life. You might as well assert that the practice of gymnastics +neither develops the muscle nor increases strength. + +I cannot believe a great public man to have attained a fall development +of his power if he has not been a whist-player; and for a leader of the +House, it is an absolute necessity. Take a glance for a moment at what +goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. +Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his +party that unhappy man is, who _will_ ask a question to-day which this +day week would be unanswerable. What is that but "playing his card out +of time"? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the +unlucky "something" being the key-note to his party's politics which +he has thus disclosed. What is this but "showing his hand"? Hear that +dreary blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has +just asserted--"trumping," as it were, "his partner's trick." Or that +still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken "the +lead out of the hand" that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would +there be one--even one--of these solecisms committed in an age when +Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and +practice of the odd trick? + +Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston "forces the hand" of +the Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon +the card Lord Russell has let drop, and "calls on him to play it." And +in the face of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered +creatures Leech gives us in 'Punch,' who, if asked, "Can they play?" +answer with a contemptuous ha-ha laugh, "I rather think not." + +To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude +occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand's +sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable +advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down +in that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and +brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era. +By what other agency--through what fortuitous combination of events +other than the game--could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How +could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual +intimacy? + +It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this +situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do +not possess--any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest +inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical +of those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries +of this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in +the lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance. +Not one of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet +he was a good player: too venturous, perhaps--too dashing--but splendid +with "a strong hand!" During all the sittings of the Paris Congress he +played every night at the Jockey Club, and won very largely--some say +above twenty thousand pounds. + +The late Prince Metternich played well, but not brilliantly. It was a +patient, cautious, back-game, and never fully developed till the last +card was played. He grew easily tired too, and very seldom could sit +out more than twelve or fourteen rubbers; unlike Talleyrand, who always +arose from table, after perhaps twelve hours' play, fresher and brighter +than when he began. Lord Melbourne played well, but had moments of +distraction, when he suffered the smaller interests of politics to +interfere with his combinations. I single him out, however, as a +graceful compliment to a party who have numbered few good players in +their ranks; for certainly the Tories could quote folly ten to +one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs are too superficial, too +crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be whist-players; and, worse than +all, too distrustful. A Whig could never trust his partner--he could not +for a moment disabuse himself of the notion that his colleague meant to +outwit him. A Whig, too, would invariably try to win by something +not perfectly legitimate; and, last of all, he would be incessantly +appealing to the bystanders, and asking if he had not, even if +egregiously beaten, played better than his opponents. + +The late Cabinet of Lord Derby contained some good players. Two of the +Secretaries of State were actually fine players, and one of them adds +Whist to accomplishments which would have made their possessor an +Admirable Crichton, if genius had not elevated him into a far loftier +category than Crichtons belong to. Rechberg plays well, and likes +his game; but he is in Whist, as are all Germans, a thorough pedant. I +remember an incident of his whist-life sufficiently amusing in its way, +though, in relation, the reader loses what to myself is certainly the +whole pungency of the story: I mean the character and nature of the +person who imparted the anecdote to me, and who is about the most +perfect specimen of that self-possession, which we call coolness, the +age we live in can boast of. + +I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in +many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the +requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which +make of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that +walks the earth. + +I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. "I used to +play a good deal with Rechberg," said he, "and took pleasure in worrying +him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with +anything that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each +game was followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense +mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and +offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian. + +"One evening, after a number of these discussions, in which Rechberg +had displayed an even unusual warmth and irritability, I found myself +opposed to him in a game, the interest of which had drawn around us a +large assembly of spectators--what the French designate as _la galerie_. +Towards the conclusion of the game it was my turn to lead, and I played +a card which so astounded the Austrian Minister, that he laid down his +cards upon the table and stared fixedly at me. + +"'In all my experience of Whist,' said he, deliberately, 'I never saw +the equal of that.' + +"'Of what?' asked! + +"'Of the card you have just played,' rejoined he. 'It is not merely +that such play violates every principle of the game, but it actually +stultifies all your own combinations.' + +"'I think differently, Count,' said I. 'I maintain that it is good play, +and I abide by it.' + +"'Let us decide it by a wager,' said he. + +"'In what way?' + +"'Thus: We shall leave the question to the _galerie_. You shall allege +what you deem to be the reasons for your play, and they shall decide if +they accept them as valid.' + +"'I agree. What will you bet?' + +"'Ten napoleons--twenty, fifty, five hundred if you like!' cried he, +warmly. + +"'I shall say ten. You don't like losing, and I don't want to punish you +too heavily.' + +"'There is the jury, sir,' said he, haughtily; 'make your case.' + +"'The wager is this,' said I, 'that, to win, I shall satisfy these +gentlemen that for the card I played I had a sufficient and good +reason.' + +"'Yes.' + +"'My reason was this, then--I looked into your hand!' + +"I pocketed his ten napoleons, but they were the last I won of him. +Indeed, it took a month before he got over the shock." + +It would be interesting if we had, which unhappily we have not, any +statistical returns to show what classes and professions have produced +the best whist-players. In my own experience I have found civilians the +superiors of the military. + +Diplomatists I should rank first; their game was not alone finer and +more subtle, but they showed a recuperative power in their play +which others rarely possessed: they extricated themselves well out of +difficulties, and always made their losses as small as possible. Where +they broke down was when they were linked with a bad partner: they +invariably played on a level which he could never attain to, and in this +way cross purposes and misunderstandings were certain to ensue. + +Lawyers, as a class, play well; but their great fault is, they play +too much for the _galerie_. The habit of appealing to the jury jags +and blurs the finer edge of their faculties, and they are more prone to +canvass the suffrages of the surrounders than to address themselves to +the actual issue. For this reason, Equity practitioners are superior to +the men in the courts below. + +Physicians are seldom first-rate players--they are always behind their +age in Whist, and rarely, if ever, know any of the fine points which +Frenchmen have introduced into the game. Their play, too, is timid--they +regard trumps as powerful stimulants, and only administer them in +drop-doses. They seldom look at the game as a great whole, but play on, +card after card, deeming each trick they turn as a patient disposed of, +and not in any way connected with what has preceded or is to follow it. + +Divines are in Whist pretty much where geology was in the time of the +first Georges; still I have met with a bishop and a stray archdeacon or +two who could hold their own. I am speaking here of the Establishment, +because in Catholic countries the higher clergy are very often good +players. Antonelli, for instance, might sit down at the Portland or the +Turf; and even my old friend G. P. would find that his Eminence was his +match. + +Soldiers are sorry performers, for mess-play is invariably bad; but +sailors are infinitely worse. They have but one notion, which is to play +out all the best cards as fast as they can, and then appeal to their +partner to score as many tricks as they have--an inhuman performance, +which I have no doubt has cost many apoplexies. + +On the whole, Frenchmen are better players than we are. Their game is +less easily divined, and all their intimations (_invites_) more subtle +and more refined. The Emperor plays well. In England he played a great +deal at the late Lord Eglinton's, though he was never the equal of +that accomplished Earl, whose mastery of all games, especially those of +address, was perfection. + +The Irish have a few brilliant players--one of them is on the bench; but +the Scotch are the most winning of all British whisters. The Americans +are rarely first-rate, but they have a large number of good second-class +players. Even with them, however, Whist is on the decline; and Euchre +and Poker, and a score more of other similar abominations, have usurped +the place of the king of games. What is to be done to arrest the +progress of this indifferentism?--how are we to awaken men out of the +stupor of this apathy? Have they never heard of the terrible warning +of Talleyrand to his friend who could not play, as he said, "Have you +reflected on the miserable old age that awaits you?" How much of human +nature that would otherwise be unprofitable can be made available by +Whist! What scores of tiresome old twaddlers are there who can still +serve their country as whisters! what feeble intelligences that can +flicker out into a passing brightness at the sight of the "turned +trump"! + +Think of this, and think what is to become of us when the old, the +feeble, the tiresome, and the interminable will all be thrown broadcast +over society without an object or an occupation. Imagine what Bores will +be let loose upon the world, and fancy how feeble will be all efforts +of wit or pleasantry to season a mass of such incapables! Think, I say, +think of this. It is a peril that has been long threatening--even +from that time when old Lord Hertford, baffled and discouraged by +the invariable reply, "I regret, my Lord, that I cannot play Whist," +exclaimed, "I really believe that the day is not distant when no +gentleman can have a vice that requires more than two people!" + + + + +ONE OF OUR "TWO PUZZLES". + +The two puzzles of our era are, how to employ our women, and what to do +with our convicts; and how little soever gallant it may seem to place +them in collocation, there is a bond that unites the attempt to keep the +good in virtue with the desire to reform the bad from vice, which will +save me from any imputation of deficient delicacy. + +Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has +been expended in devising occupations where female labour might be +advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more +delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men. +Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph, +have been freely opened--and, I believe, very successfully--to female +skill; and scores of other callings have been also placed at their +disposal: but, strange enough, the more that we do, the more there +remains to be done; and never have the professed advocates of woman's +rights been so loud in their demands as since we have shared with them +many of what we used to regard as the especial fields of man's industry. +Women have taken to the practice of Medicine, and have threatened to +invade the Bar--steps doubtless anticipatory of the time when they shall +"rise in the House" or sit on the Treasury benches. Now, I have very +little doubt that we used not to be as liberal as we might in sharing +our callings with women. We had got into the habit of underrating their +capacities, and disparaging their fitness for labour, which was very +illiberal; but let us take care that the reaction does not cany us too +far on the other side, and that in our zeal to make a reparation we only +make a blunder, and that we encourage them to adopt careers and crafts +totally unsuited to their tastes and their powers. + +It is quite clear--in fact, a mere glance at the detail of the +preliminary studies will suffice to show it--that medicine and surgery +should not be shared with them. For a variety of reasons, they ought +not to be encouraged to take holy orders; and, on the whole, it is very +doubtful if it would be a wise step to introduce them into the army, +much less into the navy. Seeing this, therefore, the question +naturally arises, Are women to be the mere drudges--the Helots of our +civilisation? Are we only to employ them in such humble callings as +exclude all ideas of future distinction? A very serious question this, +and one over which I pondered for more than half an hour last night, as +I lay under the influence of some very strong tea and a slight menace of +gout. + +Women are very haughty creatures--very resentful of any supposed +slight--very aggressive, besides, if they imagine the time for attack +favourable. Will they sit down patiently as makers of pill-boxes and +artificial flowers? Will they be satisfied with their small gains and +smaller consideration? Will there not be ambitious spirits amongst +them who will ask, What do you mean to offer us? We are of a class who +neither care to bind books nor draw patterns. We are your equals--if +we were not distinctively modest, we might say something more than +your equals--in acquirement and information. We have our smattering +of physical-science humbug, as you have; we are read up in theological +disputation, and are as ready as you to stand by Colenso against Moses; +in modern languages we are more than your match. What have you to offer +us if we are too proud, or too poor, or too anything else, to stand +waiting for a buyer in the marriage-market of Belgravia? You will not +suffer us to enter the learned professions nor the Service; you will not +encourage us to be architects, attorneys, land-agents, or engineers. We +know and we feel that there is not one of these callings either above +our capacity or unsuited to our habits, but you deny us admittance; and +now we ask, What is your scheme for our employment? what project have +you that may point out to us a future of independence and a station of +respect? Have you such a plan? or, failing it, have you the courage to +proclaim to the world that all your boasted civilisation can offer us +is to become the governesses to the children of our luckier sisters? But +there are many of us totally unsuited to this, brought up with ways +and habits that would make such an existence something very like penal +servitude--what will you do with us? + +With this cry--for it became a cry--in my ears, I tried to go asleep. +I counted seventeen hundred and forty-four; I thought of the sea; I +imagined I was listening to Dr Cumming; and I endeavoured to repeat +a distich of Martin Tupper: but the force of conscience and the congo +carried the day, and I addressed myself vigorously to the question. +I thought of making them missionaries, lighthouse-keepers, lunacy +commissioners, Garter Kings-at-Arms, and suchlike, when a brilliant +thought flashed across my brain, and, with the instinct of a great +success, I saw I had triumphed. "Yes," cried I aloud, "there is one +grand career for women--a career which shall engage not alone all the +higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call +forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their +tact, their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually +employ the less commendable features of female nature, and find work for +their powers of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion +for intrigue. How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for +of all the careers meant by nature for women, was there any one could +compare with Diplomacy!" + +Here we have at once the long-sought-for career--the _desideratum tanti +studii_--the occupation for which men are too coarse, too clumsy, too +inept, and which requires the lighter touch and more delicate treatment +of female fingers. It is the everyday reproach heard of us abroad, that +our representatives are deficient in those smaller and nicer traits by +which irritations are avoided and unpleasant situations relieved. John, +they say, always imagines that to be national he must be "Bull," and +toss on his horns "all and every" that opposes him. Now, late events +might have disabused foreign cabinets on this score: a quieter beast +than he has shown himself need not be wished for. Still, he has +bellowed, and lashed his tail, and cut a few absurd capers, to show +what he would be at if provoked; but the world has grown too wise to be +terrified by such exhibitions, and quietly settled down to the opinion +that there is nothing to fear from him. Now, how very differently might +all this have been if the Duchess of S. were Ambassador at Paris, and +the Countess of C. at St Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would +have been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying--none of that blundering +about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress "ought to follow +a war," and proposing one to-morrow, "to prevent a war." Women despise +logic, and consequently would not stultify it. A temperance apostle is +not likely to adulterate the liquor that he does not drink; and for +this reason, female intelligence would have escaped this "muddle." Her +Ladyship would have thrown her blandishments over Rechberg--he is now +of the age when men are easy victims--all the little cajoleries and +flatteries of women's art would have been exerted first to find out, and +then to thwart, his policy. It is notorious that English diplomacy knows +next to nothing through secret agency. Would such be the case if we had +women as envoys? What mystery would stand the assault of a fine lady, +trained and practised by the habits of her daily life? + +They tell us that our fox-hunters would form the finest scout-cavalry +in Europe; and I am convinced that a London leader of fashion--I have a +dozen in my eye at this moment--would track an intrigue through all its +stages, and learn its intimate details of place and time and agency, +weeks before a merely male intelligence began to suspect the thing was +possible. + +Imagine what a blue-book would be in these times--would there be +any reading could compare with it? We used to admire a certain +diplomatist--a pleasant narrator of court gossip--giving, as he did, +little traits of Kings and Kaisers, and telling us the way in which +majesty was graciously pleased to blow his royal nose. Imagine a female +pen engaged on such themes! What clever and sharp little touches would +reveal the whole tone of a "reception"! We should not be told "His +Majesty received me coldly," but we would have a beautiful analysis +of the royal mind in all its varied moods of displeasure, concealment, +urbanity, reserve, and deception. Compared with the male version of the +same incident, it would be like Faraday's report on a case of supposed +poisoning beside the blundering narrative of a country apothecary! + +It is a long time--a very long time--before an old country has energy +enough to throw off any of its accustomed ways. It requires the vigorous +assault of young and sturdy intelligences, and, above all, immense +persistence, to effect it. + +Light comes very slowly indeed through the fog of centuries' growth, and +there is hope always when even the faintest flicker of a ray pierces the +Boeotian cloud. Now, for some years back, it may have been remarked that +a sort of suspicion has been breaking on the minds of our rulers, that +the finer, the higher, and subtler organisations of women might find +their suitable sphere of occupation in the diplomatic service. + +"I don't speak German, but I play the German flute," said the apologetic +gentleman; and so might we say. We don't engage ladies in diplomacy, +but we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a +well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine +clothes and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, and heart and soul +devoted to royalties, we promote him. If he speak French tolerably, we +make him a Minister; if he be fluent, an Envoy Extraordinary. + +I remember an old medical lecturer in Dublin formerly, who used to hold +forth on the Materia Medica in the hall of the University, and who, +seeing a "student" whose studies had been for some time before pursued +in Germany, appear in the lecture-room, with a note-book and pen to take +down the lecture-- + +"Tell that young gentleman," said the Professor, "to put up his writing +materials, for there's not one word he'll hear from me that he'll not +find in the oldest editions of the 'Dublin Pharmacopoeia.'" In the same +spirit our diplomatists may sneer at the call for blue-books. We have +all of us had the whole thing already in the 'Times;' and why? Because +we choose to employ unsuitable tools. We want to shave with a hatchet +instead of a razor; for be it remarked, as no things are so essentially +unlike as those that have a certain resemblance, there is nothing in +nature so remote from the truly feminine finesse as the mind of a male +"old woman." + +It is simply to the flaws and failures of female intelligence that the +parallel applies. A very pleasant old parson, whom I knew when I was a +boy, and who used to discourse to me much about Edmund Burke and Gavin +Hamilton, told me once that he met old Primate Stewart one day returning +from a visitation, and turned his horse round to accompany the carriage +for some distance. "Doctor G.," said the Archbishop, "you remind me most +strikingly of my friend Paley." + +"Oh, my Lord, it is too much honour: I have not the shadow of a +pretension to such distinction." + +"Well, sir, it is true; I have Paley before me as I look at you." + +"I am overwhelmed by your Lordship's flattery." + +"Yes, sir; Paley rode just such another broken-down old grey nag as +that." + +Do not therefore disparage my plan for the employment of women in +diplomacy by any ungenerous comparisons with the elderly ladies at +present engaged in it. This would be as unfair as it is ungallant. + +There are a variety of minor considerations which I might press into the +cause, but some of them would appeal less to the general mind than to +the official, and I omit them--merely observing what facilities it would +give for the despatch of business, if the Minister, besieged, as he +often now is, by lady-applicants for a husband's promotion, instead of +the tedious inquiry, "Who is Mr D.?--where has he been?--what has he +done?--what is he capable of?" could simply say, "Make Mrs T. Third +Secretary at Stuttgart, and send Mrs O'Dowd as Vice-Consul to Simoom!" + + + + +A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. + +It is no small privilege to you "gentlemen of England who live at home +at ease," or otherwise, that you cannot hear how the whole Continent is +talking of you at this moment. We have, as a nation, no small share of +self-sufficiency and self-esteem. If we do not thank God for it, we are +right well pleased to know that we are not like that Publican there, +"who eats garlic, or carries a stiletto, or knouts his servants, or +indulges in any other taste or pastime of 'the confounded foreigner.'" +The 'Times' proclaims how infinitely superior we are every morning; and +each traveller--John Murray in hand--expounds in his bad French, that +an Englishman is the only European native brought up in the knowledge of +truth and the wash-tub. + +By dint of time, iteration, and a considerable amount of that same +French I speak of, an article expressly manufactured for exportation, we +really did at last persuade patient and suffering Europe to take us +at our own valuation. We got them to believe that--with certain little +peculiarities, certain lesser vices, rather amiable than otherwise--no +nation, ancient or modern, could approach us. That we were at one and +the same time the richest, the strongest, the most honourable, the +most courageous people recorded in history; and not alone this, but the +politest and the most conciliatory, with the largest coal-fields and +the best cookery in Europe. Now, there is nothing more damaging than the +witness who proves too much. Miss Edgeworth tells us somewhere, I +think, of an Irish peer who, travelling in France with a negro servant, +directed him, if questioned on the subject, always to say his master was +a Frenchman. He was punctiliously faithful to his orders; but whenever +he said, "My massa a Frenchman," he always added, "So am I." + +In the same spirit has Bull gone and damaged himself abroad. He might +have enjoyed an unlimited credit for his stories of English wealth and +greatness--how big was our fleet, and how bitter our beer; he might have +rung the changes over our just pride in our insular position and +our income-tax, and none dared to dispute him; but when, in the warm +expansiveness of his enthusiasm, he proceeded to say, not merely that we +dressed better and dined better than the foreigner, but that our manners +were more polished, our address more insinuating, and the amiability +of our whole social tone more conspicuous, "Mossoo," taking him to +represent all from Stockholm to Sicily, began to examine for himself, +and after some hesitation to ask, "What if the wealth be only like +the politeness? What if the national character be about as rude as the +cookery? What if English morality turn out to be a jumble and confusion, +very like English-French? Who is to tell us that the coal-fields may not +be as easily exhausted as the civility?" These were very ugly doubts, +and for some years back foreigners, after that slow fashion in which +public opinion moves amongst them, have been turning them over and over, +but in a manner that showed a great revulsion had taken place on the +Continent with regard to the estimate of England. + +A nation usually judges another nation by the individuals and by the +Government. Now it is no calumny to say that, taking them _en masse_, +the English who travel abroad, whether it be from indifference, from +indolence, from a rooted confidence in their own superiority, or +from some defect in character, neither win favour for themselves, nor +affection for their country from foreigners. So long as we were looked +upon, however, as colossal in wealth and power, a certain rude and +abrupt demeanour was taken as the type of a people too practical to +be polished. It grew to be thought that intense activity and untiring +energy had no time to bestow on mere forms. When, however, a suspicion +began to get abroad--it was a cloud no bigger at first than a man's +hand--that if we had the money it was to hoard it, and if we had the +power it was to withhold its exercise; that we wanted, in fact, to +impose on the world by the menace of a force we never meant to employ, +and to rule Europe as great financiers "bear" the Stock Exchange--then, +and then for the first time, there arose that cry against England as a +sham and an imposition, of which, as I said before, it is very pleasant +for you at home if the sounds have not reached you. + +All our late policy has led to this. Ever ready to join with France, we +always leave her in the lurch. We went with her to Mexico, and left her +when she landed. We did our utmost to launch her into a war for Poland, +in which we had never the slightest intention of joining. Always prompt +for the initiative, we stop short immediately after. I have a friend who +says, "I am very fond of going to church, but I don't like going in." +This is exactly the case of England. She won't go in. + +Now, I am fully persuaded it would have been a mistake to have joined in +the Mexican campaign. I cannot imagine such a congeries of blunders as +a war for the Poles. But why entertain these questions? Why discuss +them in cabinets, and debate them in councils? Why convey the false +impression that you are indignant when you are indifferent, or feel +sympathy for sufferings of which you will do nothing but talk? + +"Masterly inactivity" was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has +led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate +politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were +dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first +of all essential you should show that you could do something very great +if you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb +having observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, the +prestige for this high quality, it was necessary that she should seem +to bestir herself. The British lion must have got up, rolled his eyes +fearfully, and even lashed his tail, before he resolved on the masterly +inactivity of lying down again. + +In Knickerbocker's 'History of New York' we have a very graphic +description of the ship in which the first Dutch explorers sailed for +the shores of North America. "The vessel was called the _Goede Vrouw_ +(Good Woman), a compliment to the wife of the President of the West +India Company, who was allowed by every one, except her husband, to be +a sweet-tempered lady--when not in liquor. It was, in truth, a gallant +vessel of the most approved Dutch construction--made by the ablest +ship-carpenters of Amsterdam, who, as is well known, always model their +ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had +one hundred feet in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one +hundred feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrel. Like the +beauteous model, who was declared to be the greatest belle of +Amsterdam, it was full in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a +copper-bottom, and withal a prodigious poop." + +It is, however, with her sailing qualities we are more interested than +with her build. "Thus she made as much lee-way as head-way--could +get along nearly as fast with the wind ahead as at poop, and was +particularly great in a calm." Would not one say, in reading this +description, that the humorist was giving prophetically a picture of the +England of the present day, making as much lee-way as head-way, none the +better, wherever the winds came from, and only great in a calm? The very +last touch he gives is exquisite. "Thus gallantly furnished, she floated +out of harbour sideways, like a majestic goose." Can anything be more +perfect; can anything more neatly typify the course the vessel of the +State is taking, "floating out sideways, like a majestic goose!" amidst +the jeers and mockeries of beholding Europe. + +Our whole policy consists in putting forward some hypothetical case, in +which, if certain other states were to do something which would cause +another country to do something else, then England would be found in +that case---- God forgive me! + +I was going to quote some of that balderdash which reminds one of 'The +Rivals,' where Acres says, "If you had called me a poltroon, Sir Lucas!" + +"Well, sir, and if I had?" + +"In that case I should have thought you a very ill-bred man." + +See what it is to have a literary Foreign Secretary; see how he +goes back to our great writers, not alone for his style, but his +statesmanship. We have been insulted, mocked, and sneered at; our +national honour derided, our national strength defied; but we are told +it is all right: our policy is a "masterly inactivity," and the Funds +are at ninety-one and one-eighth! + +The 'Times.' too, is of the same cheery and encouraging spirit, and +philosophically looks on the misfortunes of our friends pretty much +as friends' misfortunes are usually regarded in life--occasions for a +tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them--the writer +speaks of the Allied armies--let them go on in the career of rapine and +cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time +will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be +retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on +the soil of the Fatherland. + +"They are going to hang Larry," cried the wife of a condemned felon to +the lawyer, who had hurried into court, having totally forgotten he had +ever engaged to defend the prisoner. + +"Let them hang him, and I'll make it the dearest hanging ever they +hanged." + +These may be words of comfort in Downing Street. I wonder what the Danes +think of them? + + + + +A NEW HANSARD. + +There is an annual publication called the 'Wreck Register,' which +probably few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to +record all the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, +accompanying the narrative by such remarks or observations as may +contribute to explain each catastrophe, or offer likelihood of +prevention in future. It is, though thoroughly divested of any +sensational character, one of the dreariest volumes one can take up. +Disaster follows disaster so fast, that at length the reader begins to +imagine that shipwreck is the all but invariable event of a voyage, +and that they who cross the ocean in safety are the lucky mortals of +humanity. + +Fortunately, however, long as the catalogue of misfortune is, this +is not the case, and we have the satisfaction of learning that the +percentage of loss is decreasing with every year. The higher knowledge +and attainments of merchant captains, and the increase of refuge +harbours, are the chief sources of this security. The old ignorance, in +which a degree or two of latitude more or less was a light error in a +ship's reckoning, is now unheard of, and they who command merchant-ships +in our day are a very well informed and superior order of men. With +reference to the conduct and capacity of these captains, this 'Wreck +Register,' is a very instructive publication. If, for instance, you +find that Captain Brace, who was wrecked on the Azores in '52, was again +waterlogged at sea in '61, and ran into an iceberg off Newfoundland +in '62, you begin, mayhap unfairly, to couple him too closely with +disaster, and you turn to the inquest over his calamities to see what +estimate was formed of his conduct. You learn, possibly, that in +one case he was admonished to more caution; in another, honourably +acquitted; and in the last instance smartly reprimanded, and his +certificate suspended for six months or a year. Now, though you have +never heard of Captain Brace in your life, nor are probably likely to +encounter him on sea or land, you cannot avoid a certain sense of relief +at the thought that so unlucky a commander, to say the least of it, +is not likely for a while to imperil more lives, and that the warning +impressed by his fate will also be a salutary lesson to many others. + +It was in reflecting over this system of inquiry and sentence, that +it occurred to me what to admirable thing it would be to introduce +the 'Wreck Register' into politics, and to have a yearly record of all +parliamentary shipwrecks; all the bills that foundered, the motions that +were stranded, the amendments lost in a fog!--to be able to look back +and reflect over the causes of these disasters, investigating patiently +how and why and where they happened, and asking ourselves, Have we +any better security for the future? are we better acquainted with the +currents, the soundings, or the headlands? and, above all, what amount +of blame, if any, is attributable to the commander? + +If we find, for instance, that the barque Young Reform, no matter how +carefully fitted out for sea--new sheathed and coppered, with bran-new +canvass, and a very likely crew on board--never leaves the port that +she does not come back crippled; and that old and experienced captains, +however confidently they may take the command at first, frankly own that +they'll never put foot in her again, you very naturally begin to suspect +that there's something wrong in her build. She is either too unwieldy, +like the Great Eastern, or she is too long to turn well, or she requires +such incessant repair; or, most fatal of all, she is entered for a trade +where nobody wants her; and therefore you resolve that, come what will, +you'll avoid her. + +What an inestimable benefit to the student of politics would a few such +brief notices be, instead of sending him, as we send him now, to the +dreary pages of Hansard! Imagine what a neat system of mnemonics would +grow out of the plan, when, instead of poring over interminable columns +of tiresome repetition, you had the whole narrative in few words--thus: +"Barque Reform, John Russell, commander, lost A.D. 1854 The +Commissioners seeing that this vessel was built for the most part of +old materials, totally unseaworthy, are of opinion that she ought not +to have sailed at all; and severely censure the commander, J. R, for +foolhardiness and obstinacy, he having, as it has been proved, acted +in entire opposition to 'his owners.' On the pressing recommendation, +however, of the owners, and at the representation that E. has been long +in the service, and is, although too self-confident, a very respectable +man, his certificate has been restored to him." + +Lower down comes the entry:-- + +"The Young Reform.--This was a full-rigged ship, in great part +constructed on the lines of the barque lost in 1854. She sailed on the +28th February 1859, commanded by Captain Dizzy. No insurance could be +effected upon her on any terms, as the crew were chiefly apprentices, +and a very mutinous spirit aboard. She put back, completely crippled, +after three days' stormy weather; and though the commander averred that +some enemies of his owners had laid down false buoys in the channel, he +was not listened to by the Commissioners, who withheld his certificate. +Has never been employed since, and his case by many considered a very +hard one." + +Of course, all the small class of coasting vessels--railroad bills and +suchlike--suffer great losses. They are usually ill-found and badly +manned; but now and then we come upon curious escapes, where a measure +slips through unobserved, like a blockade-runner; and it is ten to one +in such cases they have that crafty old pilot Pam on board, who has been +more than fifty years at sea, and is as wide awake now as on his first +day. + +What analogies press in on every hand! Look at the way each party bids +for and buys up the old materials of the other, fancying they have some +"lines" of their own that will turn out a clipper to beat everything. +And think of those "Sailors' Homes," where old salts chew their quids at +ease--those snug permanent Under-Secretaryships, those pleasant asylums +in the Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in +Downing Street, where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not +at once before you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the "ordinary +seaman" higgling for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging +that his grog may not be watered? And, last of all, see the old +lighthouse-keepers, the veteran First Clerks who serve every +Administration, and keep their lamps bright for all parties--a fine set +of fellows in their way, though some people will tell you that they have +their favourites too, and are not so brisk about the fog-signals if they +don't like the skipper. + +I think I have done enough to show that such a work as I speak of would +redound to public benefit; and I only ask, if my suggestion be approved +of, that I may be remembered as the inventor, and not treated as +Admiralty Lords do the constructors of new targets, testing the metal +and torturing the man. Bear in mind, therefore, if the political 'Wreck +Register' be ever carried into execution, its device must be "O'Dowdius +fecit." + +It might not be amiss, in the spirit that has suggested this +improvement, to organise in connection with the proceedings of the House +a code of signals on the plan of Admiral Fitzroy's storm-signals, and +which, from the great tower, or some similar eminence, might acquaint +members what necessity for their presence existed. Fancy, for instance, +the relief an honourable gentleman would experience on seeing the +fine-weather flag up, and knowing thereby that something of no moment +was being discussed--a local railroad, a bill to enable some one to +marry his grandmother, or a measure for Ireland! Imagine the fog-signal +flying, and see how instantaneously it would he apprehended that D. G. +was asking the noble Lord at the head of the Government a question so +intensely absurd as to show a state of obscurity in his own faculties, +in comparison to which fog is a thin atmosphere! Or mark what excitement +would be felt as the storm-drum was hoisted, telling how the Government +craft was being buffeted and knocked about, and the lifeboat of the +Opposition manned to take charge of the ship if abandoned! What a mercy +to those poor, hard-worked, harassed, and wearied "whips"! what a +saving there would be in club-frequenting and in cab-hire! Now would the +lounger, as he strolled along Pall-Mall, say, "No need to hurry." +"light airs of wind from the east" means a member for Galway and some +balderdash about the Greeks. "Thick weather in the Channel" implies +troubles in Ireland--nothing very new or interesting. "Dirty weather +to the east'ard" would show mischief in the Danubian provinces, and a +general sense of unquiet in the regions of the Sultan Redcliffe. These +are hints which I have not patented, and the chances are that "My Lords" +will speedily adopt them, and call them their own. + + + + +FOREIGN CLUBS. + +How is it, will any one tell me, that all foreign Clubs are so ineffably +stupid? I do not suspect that we English are pre-eminent for social +gifts; and yet we are the only nation that furnishes clubable men. +Frenchmen are wittier, Germans profounder, Russians--externally at +least--more courteous and accommodating; and yet their Clubs are mere +_tripots_--gambling establishments; and, except play, no other feature +of Club-life is to be found in them. + +To give a Club its peculiar "cachet"--its, so to say, trade-mark--you +require a class of men who make the Club their home, and whose interest +it is that all the internal arrangements should be as perfect, as well +ordered, and frictionless as may be. Good furniture, good servants, good +lighting, good cookery, well-adjusted temperature, and a well-chosen +cellar, are all essentials. In a word, the Club is to be the realisation +of what we all think so much of--comfort. Now, how very few foreigners +either understand or care for this! Every one who has travelled abroad +has seen the "Cercle," or "L'Union," or whatever its name be, where +men of the highest station--ministers, ambassadors, generals, and +suchlike--met to smoke and play whist, with a sanded floor, a dirty +attendance, and yet no one ever complained. They drank detestable beer, +and inhaled a pestilent atmosphere, and sat in draughts, without a +thought that there was anything to be remedied, or that human skill +could or need contrive anything better for their accommodation. + +When these establishments were succeeded by the modern Club, with its +carpeted floor, silk hangings, ormolu lamps, and velvet couches, the +change was made in a pure spirit of Anglomanie; somebody had been over +to London, and come back full of the splendours of Pall-Mall. The work +of imitation, so far as decoration went, was not difficult. Indeed, in +some respects, in this they went beyond us, but there ended the success. +The Club abroad is a room where men gamble and talk of gambling, but no +more; it is not a Club. + +For the working of the Club, as for that of constitutional government, a +special class are required. It, is the great masses of the middle ranks +in England, varied enough in fortune, education, habits, and tastes, but +still one in some great condition of a status, that supply the materials +for the work of a parliamentary government; and it is through the supply +of a large community of similar people that Clubs are maintained in +their excellence with us. + +For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable +of all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club, +not alone to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to +interchange thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club +imparts; to hear the gossip of the day told in the spirit of men of +their own leanings; to ascertain what judgments are passed on public +events and public characters by the people they like to agree with;--in +fact, to give a sort of familiar domestic tone to intercourse, +suggesting the notion that the Club is a species of sanctuary where men +can talk at their ease. The men who furnish this category with us are +neither young nor old, they are the middle-aged, retaining some of the +spring and elasticity of youth, but far more inclining to the solidity +of riper years. If they frequent the Opera, it is to a stall, not to the +_coulisses_, they go. They are more critical than they used to be +about their dinners, and they have a tendency to mix seltzer with their +champagne. They have reached that bourne in which egotism has become an +institution; and by the transference of its working to the Club, they +accomplish that marvellous creation by which each man sees himself and +his ways and his wants and his instincts reflected in a thousand varied +shapes. + +Now, there are two things no nation of the Continent possesses--Spring, +and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell--some +have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for +sixty years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral +territory--no _mezzo termine_. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must +serve as a Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the absence of all serious +interest in life, which mark the leisure classes abroad, follow men +sometimes even to extreme old age. The successive changes of temperament +and taste which we mark at home have no correlatives abroad. +The foreigner inhabits at sixty the same sort of world he did at +six-and-twenty: he does not dance so much, but he lingers in the +ballroom, and he is just as keenly alive to all the little naughty talk +that amused him forty years ago, and folly as much interested to hear +that the world is just as false and as wicked as it used to be when he +was better able to contribute to its frailty and wickedness. + +Not one of these men, with their padded pectorals and dyed whiskers, +will admit that they are of an age to require comfort. They are ardent +youths all of them, turning night into day as of old, and no more +sensible of fatigue from late hours, hot rooms, and dissipation, than +they were a quarter of a century back. + +Can you fancy anything less clubable than a set of men like this? You +might as well set before me the stale bon-bons and sugar-plums of a +dessert for a dinner, as ask me to take such people for associates and +companions. The tone of everlasting trifling disgraces even idleness; +and these men contrive in their lives to reverse the laws of physics, +since it is by their very levity that they fall. + +The humoristic temperament is the soul of Club-life. It is the keen +appreciation of others in all their varied moods and shades of feeling +that imparts the highest enjoyment to that strange democracy, the +Club; and foreigners are immensely deficient in this element. They are +infinitely readier, smarter, and wittier than Englishmen. They will hit +in an epigram what we would take an hour to embrace in an argument; but +for the racy pleasure of seeing how such a man will listen to this, +what such another will say to that, how far individuality, in fact, will +mould and fashion the news of the day, and assimilate its mental food +to its own digestive powers, there is nothing like the Englishman--and +especially the Englishman of the Club. + +There is nothing like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten +to Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in +the nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and +obligingness, that we find the purest element of Club-life. + +The Parisian are the best--far and away the best--of all foreign Clubs; +best in their style of "get-up," decoration, and arrangement, and best +also in tone and social manner. The St Petersburg Club is the most +gorgeous, the habits the most costly, the play the highest. It is not +very long since that a young Russian noble lost in one evening a sum +equal to a hundred thousand pounds. The Vienna Club is good in its own +stiff German way; but, generally speaking, German Clubs are very ill +arranged, dirty, and comfortless. The Italian are better. Turin, Naples, +and Florence have reasonably good Clubs. Home has nothing but the +thing called the English Club, a poorly-got-up establishment of small +whist-players and low "points." + +It is a very common remark, that costume has a great influence +over people's conduct, and that the man in his shooting-jacket will +occasionally give way to impulsive outbursts that he had never thought +of yielding to in his white-cravat moments. Whether this be strictly +true or not, there is little doubt that the style and character of the +room a man sits in insensibly affects his manner and his bearing, and +that the habits which would not be deemed strange in the low-ceilinged +chamber, with the sanded floor and the "mutton lights," would be totally +indecorous in the richly-carpeted room, a blaze of wax-light, and +glittering with decoration. Now this alternating between Club and _Cafe_ +spoils men utterly. It engenders the worst possible style--a double +manner. The over-stiffness here and the over-ease there are alike +faulty. + +The great, the fatal defect of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of +some one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of +presumed superiority and affectation of "knowing the whole thing," +browbeat and ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want +of that wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is +possible. Of public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any +shape; and yet it is by the unwritten judgments of such a tribunal that +society is guided in England, and the same law that discourages the +bully supports and encourages the timid, without either the one or the +other having the slightest power to corrupt the court, or coerce its +decrees. Club-life is, in a way, the normal school for parliamentary +demeanour; and until foreigners understand the Club, they will never +comprehend the etiquette of the "Chamber." + + + + +A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. + +I have frequently heard medical men declare that no test of a +candidate's fitness to be admitted as a physician was equal to a brief +examination at the bedside of a sick man. To be able to say, "There is +a patient; tell us his malady, and what you will do for it," was +infinitely better than long hours spent in exploring questions of minute +anatomy and theoretical physic. In fact, for all practical purposes, +it was more than likely he would be the best who would make the least +brilliant figure in an examination; and the man whose studies had +familiarised him with everything from Galen to John Hunter, would cut +just as sorry a figure if called on to treat a case of actual malady. + +It cannot possibly be otherwise. All that mere examination can effect, +is to investigate whether an individual has duly prepared himself +for the discharge of certain functions; but it never can presume to +ascertain whether the person is one fitted by nature, by habit, by +taste, or inclination, for the duties before him. Why, the student who +may answer the most abstruse questions in anatomy, may himself have +nerves so weak as to faint at the sight of blood. The physician who has +Paracelsus by heart, may be so deficient in that tact of eye, or ear, +or touch, as to render his learning good for nothing. Half an hour in +an hospital would, however, test these qualities. You would at once see +whether the candidate was a mere mass of book-learning, or whether he +was one skilled in the aspect of disease, trained to observe and +note all the indications of malady, and able even instantaneously to +pronounce upon the gravity of a case before him. This is exactly what +you want. No examination of a man's biceps and deltoid, the breadth of +his chest or the strength of his legs, would tell you whether he was +a good swimmer--five minutes in deep water would, however, decide the +matter. + +Now, I shall not multiply arguments to prove my position. I desire to be +practical in these "O'Dowdiana," and I strive not to be prosy. What +I would like, then, is to introduce this system of--let us call +it--Test-examination, into the Civil Service. + +I have the highest respect for the pedagogues of Burlington House. I +think highly of Ollendorff and I believe Colenso's Arithmetic a great +institution. I venerate the men who invent the impossible questions; but +I own I have the humblest opinion of those who answer them. I'd as soon +take a circus-horse, trained to fire a pistol and sit down like a dog, +to carry me across a stiff country, as I'd select one of these fellows +for an employ which required energy, activity, or ready-wittedness. +There is no such inefficiency as self-sufficiency; and this is the +very quality instilled by the whole system. Ask the veterans of the +Admiralty, the War Office, the Board of Trade, and the Customs, and +you will get but the same report, that for thorough incompetency and +inordinate conceit there is nothing like the prize candidate of a Civil +Service examination. Take my word for it, you could not find a worse +pointer than the poodle which would pick you out all the letters of the +alphabet. + +What I should therefore suggest is, to introduce into the Civil Service +something analogous to this clinical examination; something that might +test the practical fitness of the candidate, and show, not whether +the man has been well prepared by a "grinder," but whether he be a +heaven-born tide-waiter, one of Nature's own gaugers or vice-consuls. + +I know it is not easy to do this in all cases. There are employments, +too, wherein it is not called for. Mere clerkship, for instance, is an +occupation of such uniformity that a man is just like a sewing-machine, +and where, the work being adjusted to him, he performs it as a matter of +routine. There are, however, stations which are more or less provocative +of tact and ready-wittedness, and which require those qualities which +schoolmasters cannot give nor Civil Service examiners take away; such as +tact, promptitude, quickness in emergency, good-natured ease, patience, +and pluck above all. These, I say, are great gifts, and it would be well +if we knew how to find them. Let us take, by way of illustration, the +Messenger Service. These Foreign Office Mercuries, who travel the whole +globe at a pace only short of the telegraph, are wonderful fellows, and +must of necessity be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, +and yet how easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be +equal to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad roads +and bad dinners, bad servants and bad smells! How patient they must be +here--how peremptory there! How they must train their stomach to +long fastings, and their skins to little soap! What can Civil Service +examination discover of all or any of these aptitudes? Is it written in +Ollendorf, think you, how many hours a man can sit in a caleche? Will +decimal fractions support his back or strengthen his lumbar vertebrae? +What system of inquiry will declare whether the weary traveller will not +oversleep himself, or smash the head of his postilion for not awaking +him at a frontier? How will you test readiness, endurance, politeness, +familiarity with 'Bradshaw' and Continental moneys? + +I think I have hit on a plan for this, suggested to me, I frankly own, +by analogy with the clinical system. I would lay out the Green Park--it +is convenient to Downing Street, and well suited to the purpose--as +a map of Europe, marking out the boundaries of each country, and +stationing posts to represent capital cities. At certain frontiers I +would station representatives of the different nations as distinctly +marked as I could procure them: that is to say, I'd have a very polite +Frenchman, a very rude and insolent Prussian, a sulky Belgian, a roguish +Italian, and an extremely dirty Russian. Leicester Square could supply +all. It being all duly prepared, I'd start my candidate, with a heavy +bag filled with its usual contents of, let us say, a large box of +cigars, a set of fire-irons, twenty pots of preserved meats, a case +of stuffed birds, four cricket-balls, and a photograph machine, some +blue-books, and a dozen of blacking. I'd start him with this, saying +simply, "Vienna, calling at Stuttgart and Turin;" not a word more; +and then I'd watch my man--how he'd cross the Channel--how he'd cajole +Moossoo--and whether he'd make straight for the Rhine or get entangled +in Belgian railroads. I'd soon see how he dealt with the embarrassments +of the roads and relished the bad diet; and not alone would I test him +by hardships and hunger, fatigue and occasional upsets; but I'd try +his powers of self-resistance by surrounding him with dissolute young +_attaches_ given to blind hookey and lansquenet. I'd have him invited +to ravishing orgies, and tempted in as many ways as St Anthony; and +all these after long privations. Then, I'd have him kept waiting either +under a blazing sun or a deep snow, or both alternately, to test his +cerebral organisation; and I'd try him with impure drinking water and +damp sheets; and, last of all, on his return, I'd make him pass his +accounts before some old monster of official savagery, who would +repeatedly impugn his honesty, call out for vouchers, and d--n his +eyes. The man "who came out strong" after all these difficulties I would +accept as fully equal to his responsibilities, for it would not be alone +in intellectuals he had been tested: the man's temper, his patience, his +powers of endurance, his physical strength, his resources in emergency, +his readiness to meet difficulty, and, last of all, his self-devotion +in matters of official discipline, enabling him to combine with all the +noble qualities of a man the submissive attractions of a spaniel. + +"Are you sure," asks some one, "that all these graces and +accomplishments can be had for L500 per annum?" Not a doubt of it. It is +a cheap age we live in; and if you wanted a shipload of clever fellows +for a new colony, I'd engage to supply you on easier terms than with the +same number of gardeners or strong-boned housemaids. + +Last of all, this scheme might be made no small attraction in this +economical era--what is called self-supporting; for the public might be +admitted to paid seats, whence they could learn European geography by a +new and easy method. "Families admitted at a reduced rate--Schools and +Seminaries half-price." + + + + +OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. + +Whenever the Budget comes on for discussion there are some three or four +speakers, of whom Mr Williams of Lambeth is sure to be one, ready to +suggest certain obvious economies by the suppression of some foreign +missions, such as Dresden, Hanover, Stuttgart, &c. They have not, it is +true, anything forcible or pungent to say on the subject; but as they +say the same thing every year, the chances are that, on the drip-drip +principle, they will at last succeed either in abolishing these +appointments, or reducing the salaries of those who hold them. + +Ministers of course defend them, and Opposition leaders, who hope +one day to be Ministers, will also blandly say a word or two in their +favour. For my own part, I don't think the country cares much about the +matter, or interests itself more deeply who drones away life at Hanover +than who occupies an apartment at Hampton Court. In each case it is a +sort of dowager asylum, where antiquated respectability may rest and be +thankful. + +The occupants of these snug berths, however far from England--at least +in so far as regards any knowledge of public opinion--are sure to +be greatly alarmed at these suggestions for their suppression. Poor +pigeons! if you only knew what a sorry sportsman it is who fires at you, +you'd never flutter a wing. Be of good heart, I say. Even if Williams's +gun go off at all, the recoil may hurt himself, but it will never damage +you. Take my word for it, "the smooth-Bore of Lambeth never hit +anything yet." This assurance of mine--I have given it scores of times +personally--never gives the comfort that it ought; for these timid +souls, bullied by long dealings with the Office--tormented, as +Mr Carlyle would say, with much First Clerk--grow to be easily +panic-stricken, and have gloomy nightmares of a time when there shall be +no more life-certificates nor any quarter-days. + +I cannot enter into their feelings, but I suppose they are reasonable. +I conclude that one would like to have a salary, and to be paid it +punctually. Self-preservation is a law that we all recognise; and some +of these officials may possibly feel that there is no other line of life +open to them, and that, if you take away from them their mission, +they will be poor indeed. You will think me perhaps as absurd as Mrs +Nickleby, who connected roast-pork and canaries, if I confess to you +that it is an old mastiff that my father had when I was a boy that +brought these people very forcibly to my mind. Poor old Turco!--I +can't know how old he was, but he was nearly blind, exceedingly feeble, +intensely stupid, and much given to sleep. Still, whenever any one of +the family--he didn't mind the servants--would go out to the stableyard, +he'd rouse himself up, and, affecting to believe it was an intruder, +he'd give a fierce bark or two, when, discovering his error, he'd wag +his tail and go back to his den--all this being evidently done to show +that he was as vigilant as ever--a sort of protest, that said, "Don't +believe one word about my being blind and toothless, still less flatter +yourself that the place is secure. It requires all my activity and +watchfulness to protect; but go back in peace, I'm ready for them." + +Now, this is exactly what Turco is doing at Munich and Dresden. Whenever +Williams comes out with a hint that he is not wanted, Turco makes a +furious noise, rushes here and there after a turkey-cock if he can find +one, and thoroughly satisfies the family that he is an invaluable beast, +and could not be dispensed with. + +Like Turco, too, who always barked, or tried to bark, whenever he heard +any noise or commotion going on outside, these people are sure to make +an uproar if there be any excitement in their neighbourhood. No sooner +did Schleswig-Holstein begin to trouble the world, than despatches +began to pour in from places that a few weeks before even the messengers +scarcely knew on the map. They related interviews with unknown princes +and unheard-of ministers, and spoke of hopes, fears, wishes, and +anxieties of people who had not, to our appreciation, a more palpable +existence than the creatures of the heathen mythology! Much grumbling, +and sore of ear, Williams goes back to his kennel. + +"What! suppress the mission at Hohen-Schwein-stadt, when I hold here," +exclaims the Minister, "the admirable report of our diplomatic agent +on the state of public feeling in that important capital? Will the +honourable gentleman, to whose long experience of foreign politics I am +ready to bow, inform me how the relations of England with the +Continent are to be carried on unless through the intervention of +such appointments? Can the honourable member for ------" (a shipowner, +perhaps) "carry on his great and important business without agencies? +Can the honourable gentleman himself" (a brewer) "be certain that the +invigorating and admirable produce of his manufacture will attain the +celebrity that it merits, or become the daily beverage of countless +thousands in the tropics, unassisted by those aids which to commerce +or diplomacy are alike indispensable?" This is very like the Premier's +eloquence. I almost think I am listening to him, and even see the smile +of triumph with which he appeals at the peroration to his friends to +cheer him. Turco is safe this time; and, better still, he need never +bark again till next Easter and another Budget. + +It is a very curious thing--it opens a whole realm of speculation--how +small and few are the devices of humanity. We fancy we are progressing +simply because we change. We give up alchemy, and we believe in +medicine; we scout witchcraft, and we take to spirit-rapping; +and instead of monasteries and monks, we have missions and +plenipotentiaries. If it be a fine thing to die for one's country, it's +a pleasant one to live for it; to know that you inhabit an impenetrable +retreat, which no "Own Correspondents" ever invade, and where, if it was +not for Williams, no sense of fear or alarm could come to disturb the +tranquil surface of a stagnant existence. + +It is astonishing, too, what a wholesome dread and apprehension of +England and English power is maintained through the means of these small +legations in secluded spots of the Continent, in remote little duchies, +without trade or commerce, far away from the sea, where no one ever +heard of imports or exports, and the name of Gladstone had never been +spoken. In such places as these, a meddlesome old envoy, with plenty of +spare time on hand, often gets us thoroughly hated, always referring +to England as a sort of court of last appeal on every question, social, +moral, religious, or political, and dimly alluding to Lord Palmerston as +a kind of Rhadamanthus, whose judgments fall heavily on ill-doers. + +The helpless hopeless condition of small states in all such conflicts +was actually pitiable. The poor little trembling King Charles dog in the +cage of the lion, and who felt that he only lived on sufferance, was the +type of them. I remember an incident which occurred some years ago +at the Bagni di Lucca, which will illustrate what I mean. An English +stranger at one of the hotels, after washing his hands, threw his +basinful of soap-and-water out of the window just as the Grand-duke was +passing, deluging his imperial highness from head to foot. The stranger +hurried at once to the street, and, throwing himself before the dripping +sovereign, made the most humble and apologetic excuses for his act; but +the Grand-duke stopped him short at once, saying, "There, there! say no +more of it: don't mention the matter to any one, or I shall get into a +correspondence with Palmerston, and be compelled to pay a round sum to +you for damages!" + +After all, one could say for these small posts in diplomacy what, I +think it was Croker said for certain rotten boroughs in former days, "If +you had not had such posts, you would have lost the services of a number +of able and instructive men, who, entering public life by the small +door, are sure to leave it by the grand entrance." + +These small missions are very often charming centres of society in +places one would scarcely hope for it; and from these little-known +legations, every now and then, issue men whom it would not be safe for +Williams to bark at, and whom, even if he were rabid, he would not bite. + + + + +DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. + +What a number of ingenious reasons have been latterly given for the +decline of the Drama, and the decrease of interest now felt for the +stage. Some aver that people are nowadays too cultivated, too highly +educated, to take pleasure in a play; others opine that the novel has +supplanted the drama; others again declare that it is the prevalence +of a religious sentiment on the subject that has damaged theatrical +representation. For my own part, I take a totally different view of the +subject. My notion is this: the world will never pay a high price for +an inferior article, if it can obtain a first-rate one for nothing; in +other words, people are come to the conclusion that the best actors are +not to be found on the boards of the Haymarket or the Adelphi, but +in the world at large--at the Exchange, in the parks, on railroads or +river-steamers, at the soirees of learned societies, in Parliament, at +Civic dinners or Episcopal visitations. + +Why has the masquerade ceased to interest and amuse? Simply because no +travestie of costume, no change of condition, is so strikingly ludicrous +as what we see on every side of us. The illiterate man with the revenue +of a prince; the millionaire who cannot write his name, and whom +yesterday we saw as a navvy; the Emperor who, a few years back, lodged +over the bootmaker's; the out-at-elbow followers of imperial fortune, +now raised to the highest splendour, and dispensing hospitalities more +than regal in magnificence;--these are the spectacles which make the +masquerade a tiresome mockery; and it is exactly because we get the +veritable article for nothing that we neither seek playhouse nor +ballroom, but go out into the streets and highways for our drama, +and take our Kembles and Macreadys as we find them at taverns, at +railway-stations, on the grassy slopes of Malvern, or the breezy cliffs +of Brighton. Once admit that the wild-flower plucked at random has more +true delicacy of tint and elegance of form, and there is no going back +to the tasteless mockery of artificial wax and wire. The broad boards of +real life are the true stage; and he who cannot find matter of interest +or amusement in the piece performed, may rely upon it that the cause is +in himself, and not in the drama. Some will say, The world is just what +it always was. People are no more fictitious now than at any other time. +There was always, and there will be always, a certain amount of false +pretension in life which you may, if you like, call acting. And to this +I demur _in toto_, and assert that as every age has its peculiar +stamp of military glory, or money-seeking, or religious fervour, or +dissipation, or scientific discovery, or unprofitable trifling, so the +mark of our own time will be found to be its thorough unreality. Every +one is in travestie. Selfishness is got up to play philanthropy, apathy +to perform zeal, intense self-seeking goes in for love of country; and, +to crown all, one of the most ordinary and vulgar minds of all Europe +now directs and disposes of the fate and fortunes of all Christendom. + +Daily habit familiarises us with the acting of the barrister. His +generous trustfulness, his love of all that is good, his scorn for Vice, +his noble pity, and the withering sarcasm with which he scathes the +ill-doer, we know, can be had, in common cases, for ten pounds ten +shillings; and five times as much will enlist in our service the same +qualities in a less diluted form; while, by quadrupling the latter sum, +we arrive at a self-devotion before which brotherly love pales, and old +friendships seem a cold and selfish indifferentism. We had contracted +for this man's acuteness, his subtlety, his quick perception, and his +ready-wittedness; but he gives, besides these, his hearty trustfulness, +his faith in our honour, his conviction in our integrity: he knows our +motives; he has been inside our bosom, and comes out to declare that all +is pure and spotless there; and he does this with a trembling lip and a +swelling throat, the sweat on his brow and the tear in his eye, it being +all the while a matter of mere accident that he had not been engaged on +the opposite side, and all the love he bears us been "briefed" for the +defendant. + +Look at the physician, too. Who is it, then, enters the sick-room with +the footfall of a cat, and draws our curtain as gently as a zephyr might +stir a rose-leaf, whose tender accents fall softly on our ear, and who +asks with the fondest anxiety how we have passed the night? Who is +it that cheers, consoles, encourages, and supports us? Who associates +himself with our sufferings, and winces under our pain, and as suddenly +rallies as we grow better, and joins in our little sickbed drolleries? +Who does all these?--a consummate actor, who takes from thirty to forty +daily "benefits," and whose performances are paid at a guinea a scene! + +The candidate on the hustings, the Government commissioner on his tour +of inspection, the vicar-general of my lord bishop, the admiral on his +station, the minister at the grand-ducal Court, are all good specimens +of common acting--parts which can be filled with very ordinary +capacities, and not above the powers of everyday artists. They conjugate +but one verb, and on its moods and tenses they trade to the end of the +chapter. These men never soar into the heroic regions of the drama; +they infuse no imagination into their parts. They are as unpoetical as a +lord-in-waiting. There are but two stops on their organ. They are bland, +or they are overbearing; they are either beautifully gentle, or they are +terrible in their wrath. + +It is a strange feature of our age that the highest walk of the +real-life drama should be given up to the men of money, and that Finance +should be the most suggestive of all that is creative, fanciful, and +imaginative. What a commentary on our era! It is no paradox I pronounce +here. The greatest actor I ever saw, the most consummate artist, was a +railroad contractor; that is, he had more persuasiveness, more of that +magnetic captivation which subordinates reason to mere hope, than +any one I ever listened to. He scorned the pictorial, he despised all +landscape effects, he summoned to his aid no assistance from gorge or +mountain, no deep-bosomed wood or bright eddying river; he was a man of +culverts and cuttings, of quartz and limestone and flint; with a glance +he could estimate traffic, and with the speed of the lightning-flash +tell you what dividend could come of the shares. + +It was, however, in results that he was grandiose. Hear him on the theme +of a completed line, a newly-opened tunnel, or a finished viaduct--it +was a Poem! Such a picture of gushing beatitude as he could paint! It +was the golden age--prosperity, happiness, and peace on every side; +the song of the husbandman at his plough mingling with the hum of the +village school; the thousand forms of civilisation, from cheap sugar to +penny serials, that would permeate the land; the peasant studying +social science over his tea, and the railway-guard supping his "cheap +Gladstone" as he speculated on the Antiquity of Man. Never was such an +Eden on earth, and all to be accomplished at the cost of a mere million +or two, with a "limited liability." + +With what a grand contempt this great man talked of the people who +busied themselves in the visionary pursuits of politics or literature, +or who devoted themselves to the Arts or Field-sports! With him +earthworks were the grandest achievements of humanity, and there was +no such civiliser as a parliamentary train. Had he been simply an +enthusiast, that fatal false logic that _will_ track enthusiasm--however +it be guided--would have betrayed him: but the man was not an +enthusiast--he was a great actor; and while to capitalists and +speculators he appealed by all the seductive inducements of profits, +premiums, and preference shares, to the outer and unmoneyed world he +made his approaches by a beautiful and touching philanthropy. + +Did he believe in all this? Heaven knows. He talked and acted as if he +did; and though, when I last saw him, he had smashed his banker, +ruined his company, and beggared the shareholders, he was high-hearted, +hopeful, and buoyant as ever. It was a general who had lost a battle, +but he meant to recruit another army. It was some accidental rumour of +a war--some stupid disturbance on the Danube or the Black Sea--that +had frightened capital and made "money tight." The scheme itself was +a glorious project--an unrivalled investment. Never was there such a +paying line--innumerable towns, filled with a most migratory population, +ever on the move, and only needing to learn the use of certain luxuries +to be constantly in demand of them. + +With a good harvest, however, and money easy, if Lord Russell could only +be commonly civil to the Continental Cabinets, all would go well yet. +The bounties of Providence would be diffused over the earth--food would +be cheap, taxation reduced, labour plenty, and "then, sir, these worthy +people shall have their line, if I die for it." + +I find it very hard to believe in Borneo's love or Othello's jealousy. +I cannot, let me do all that I will, accept them as real, even in their +most impassioned moments, and yet this other man holds me captive. If +I had a hundred pounds in the world, I'd put it into his scheme, and I +really feel that, in not borrowing the money to make a venture, I am +a poor-spirited creature that has not the courage to win his way to +fortune. + +And yet these fellows have no aid from dress or make-up. They are not +surrounded with all the appliances that aid a deception. They come to us +in their everyday apparel, and, mayhap, at inopportune moments, when +we are weary, or busy, or out of sorts, to talk of what we are not +interested in, and have no relish for. With their marvellous tact they +conquer apathy and overcome repugnance; they gain a hearing, and they +obtain at least time for more. There is much in what they say that +we feel no interest in; but now and then they _do_ touch a chord that +vibrates within us; and when they do so, it is like magic the instinct +with which they know it. It was that Roman camp, that lead-mine, that +trout-stream, or that paper-mill, did the thing; and the rogue saw it as +plainly as if he had a peep into our brain, and could read our thoughts +like a printed book. These then, I say, are the truly great actors, who +walk the boards of life with unwritten parts, who are the masters of our +emotions, even to the extent of taking away our money, and who demand +our trustfulness as a right not to be denied them. + +Now, what a poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly +and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is +going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed +plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive +thing that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, at the +station, in the club, on the chain-pier, or the penny steamer? Is there +any one, I ask, who will pay to see the plaster-cast when he can +behold the marble original for nothing? You say, "Are you going to the +masquerade?" and I answer, "I am at it." _Circumspice!_ Look at the +mock royalties hunting (Louis XIV. fashion) in the deep woods of +Fontainebleau. Look at haughty lords and ladies--the haughtiest the +earth has ever seen--vying in public testimonies of homage--as we saw +a few days ago--to the very qualities that, if they mean anything, +mean the subversion of their order. Look at the wasteful abundance of +a prison dietary, and the laudable economy which half-starves the +workhouse. Look at the famished curate, with little beyond Greek roots +to support him, and see the millionaire, who can but write his name, +with a princely fortune; and do you want Webster or Buckstone to give +these "characters" more point? + +Will you take a box for the 'Comedy of Errors,' when you can walk +into the Chancery Court for nothing? Will you pay for 'Much Ado about +Nothing,' when a friendly order can admit you to the House? And as for +a 'New Way to Pay Old Debts,' commend me to Commissioner Goulburn in +Bankruptcy; while 'Love's Last Shift' is daily performed at the Court of +Probate, under the distinguished patronage of Judge Wills. Is there any +need to puzzle one's head over the decline of the drama, then? You +might as well ask if a moderate smoker will pay exorbitantly for dried +cabbage-leaves, when he can have prime Cubans for the trouble of taking +them! + + + + +PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. + +I do not remember ever to have read more pompons nonsense than was +talked a few days ago in Parliament on the subject of pensions for +retired colonial governors. + +On all ordinary occasions the strongest case a man can have with the +British public is to be an ill-used man--that is to say, if you be a man +of mark, or note, or station. To be ill-used, as one poor, friendless, +and ignoble, is no more than the complement of your condition. It is in +the fitness of things that pauperism, which we English have declared +to be illegal, should neither be fondled nor caressed. To be ill-used +profitably there must be something pictorial in your case; it must have +its reliefs of light as well as shade. There must be little touches, +a bright "has been," sunny spots of a happy past Without the force +of these contrasts, there is no possibility of establishing the grand +grievance which is embodied in ill-usage. + +Now, Mr B. C. who brought on this motion was a sorry artist, and the +whole sum and substance of his case was, that as we secured the services +of eminent and able men, we ought to pay them "properly." Why, in that +one word "properly" lay the whole question. What constitutes proper +payment? Every career in life carries with it some circumstance either +of advantage or the reverse, which either compensates for the loss of a +material benefit, or is requited by some addition of a tangible profit. +The educated man who accepts three hundred a-year in the Church is +not recompensed, or considered to be recompensed, by this miserable +pittance. It is in the respect, the influence, the power, and the +reverence that attach to his calling he is rewarded. Place a layman in +the parish beside him with that income, and mark the difference of their +stations! The same of the soldier. Why or how does seven-and-sixpence +diurnally represent one the equal of the best in any society of the +land? Simply by a conventional treaty, by which we admit that a man, +at the loss of so much hard cash, may enjoy a station which bears no +imaginable proportion to his means. + +On the other hand, there are large communities who, addressing +themselves to acquire wealth and riches, care very little for the +adventitious advantages of social state. As it is told of Theodore Hook, +at a Lord Mayor's feast, that he laid down his knife and fork at the +fifth course, and declared "he would take the rest out in money;" so +there are scores of people who "go in" for the actual and the real. They +have no sympathy with those who "take out" their social status partly +in condition partly in cash, as is the case with the curate and the +captain. + +Almost every man, at his outset in life, makes some computation of how +much his career can pay him in money, how much in the advantages of rank +and station. The bailiff on the estate makes very often a far better +income than the village doctor; but do you believe that AEsculapius would +change places with him for all that? Is not the unbought deference +to his opinion, the respect to his acquirements, the obedience to his +counsel, something in the contract he makes with the world? Does he +not recognise, every day of his life, that he is not measured by the +dimensions of the small house he resides in, or the humble qualities +of the hack he rides, but that he has an acceptance in society totally +removed from every question of his fortune? + +In the great lottery we call life, the prizes differ in many things +besides degree. If the man of high ambition determine to strain every +nerve to attain a station of eminence and power, it may be that his +intellectual equal, fonder of ease, more disposed to tranquillity, will +settle down with a career that at the very best will only remove him a +step above poverty; and shall we dare to say that either is wrong? My +brother the Lord Chancellor is a great man, no doubt. The mace is a +splendid club, and the woolsack a most luxurious sofa; but as I walk +my village rounds of a summer's morning, inhaling perfume of earth +and plant, following with my eye the ever-mounting lark, have I not +a lighter heart, a freer step, a less wearied head? Have I not risen +refreshed from sleep? not nightmared by the cutting sarcasms of some +noble earl on my fresh-gilt coronet, some slighting allusion to my +"newness in that place"? Depend upon it, the grand law of compensation +which we recognise throughout universal nature extends to the artificial +conditions of daily life, and regulates the action and adjusts the +inequalities of our social state. + +What is a viceroy or a colonial governor? A man of eminence and ability, +doubtless, but who is satisfied to estrange himself from home and +country, and occupy himself with cares and interests totally new and +strange to him, for some five or fifteen thousand pounds a-year, plus +a great variety of other things, which to certain minds unquestionably +represent high value--the--station, the power, the prestige of a great +position, with all its surroundings of deference and homage. Large as +his salary is, it is the least distinctive feature of his high office. +In every attribute of rank the man is a king. In his presence the wisest +and the most gifted do no more than insinuate the words of their wisdom, +and beauty retires curtsying, after a few commonplaces from his lips. +Why, through all the employments of life, who ever attains to the like +of this? His presence is an honour, his notice is fame. To be his guest +is a distinction for a day; to be his host is to be illustrious for a +lifetime. Are these things nothing? Ask the noble earl as he sits in his +howdah; ask my lord marquis as he rides forth with a glittering staff. + +Did any one, even Mr B. C. himself, ever imagine that Mr Macready +ought to be pensioned after he had played Cardinal Wolsey? Was it +ever proposed, even in Parliament, that Mr Kean should have a retiring +allowance when he had taken off his robes as Henry IV.? These eminent +men were, however, just as real, just as actual, during their brief hour +on the stage, as His Excellency the Viceroy or the "Lord High." They +were there under a precisely similar compact. They had to represent a +state which had no permanence, and a power that had no stability. They +were to utter words which would be ridiculous from their lips to-morrow, +and to assume a port and bearing that must be abandoned when they +retired to change their clothes. + +It is one of my very oldest memories as a boy that I dined in company +with Charles Kemble. There was a good deal of talking, and a fair share +of wine-drinking. In the course of the former came the question of the +French Revolution of '30, and the conduct of the French King on that +occasion. Kemble took no part in the discussion; he listened, or seemed +to listen, filled his glass and emptied it, but never spoke. At last, +when each speaker appeared to have said his say, and the subject +approached exhaustion, the great actor, with the solemnity of a judge in +a charge, and with a grand resonance of voice, said: "I'll tell you how +it is, sirs; Charles X. has forfeited a--a--a right good engagement!" +And that was exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are +now taking, of kings and rulers--and let us profit by it. The colonial +king has his "engagement;" it is defined exactly like the actor's. He is +to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour +in the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not +always, of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes +seriously in him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some +impassioned moment or other like that in which I once knew Othello so +far carried away that he flung Iago into the orchestra. + +Pension Carlisle, pension Storks, if you will; but be just as well as +generous, and take care that you provide for Paul Bedford and Buckstone. + +In Archbishop Whately's 'Historic Doubts,' we find that the existence +of the first emperor can be disproven by the very train of argument +employed to deny the apostles. Let me suggest the converse of this mode +of reasoning, and ask, Is there a word you can say for the Viceroy +you cannot equally say for the actor? Have you an argument for him who +governs St Helena that will not equally apply to him who struts his hour +at the Haymarket? + +I perceive that the writer of a letter to the 'Times' advocates the +claims of the ex-Governors, on the plausible plea that it is exactly the +very men who best represent the dignity of the station--best reflect the +splendour of the Sovereign--who come back poor and penniless from the +high office: while the penurious Governor, who has given dissatisfaction +everywhere, made the colony half rebellious by his narrow economies, +and degraded his station by contemptible savings, comes back wealthy and +affluent--self-pensioned, in fact, and independent. + +To meet this end, the writer suggests that the Crown, as advised +thereon, should have a discretionary power of rewarding the well-doer +and refusing the claim of the unmeriting, which would distinctly +separate the case of the worthy servant of the Sovereign from that of +him who only employed his office to enrich himself. + +There is a certain shallow--it is a very shallow--plausibility about +this that attracts at first sight; and there would unquestionably be +some force in it, if dinner-giving and hospitalities generally were the +first requisites of a colonial ruler; but I cannot admit this. I cannot +believe that the man who administers India or Canada, or even Jamaica +or Barbadoes, is only an expatriated Lord Mayor. I will not willingly +consent to accept it as qualification for a high trust that a man has +a good cook and an admirable cellar, and an ostentatious tendency to +display the merits of both. Mind, I am no ascetic who say this: I like +good dinners; I like occasionally--only occasionally though--very good +dinners. I feel with a clever countryman who said he liked being asked +out to dine, "it was flattering, and it was nourishing;" but with all +this I should never think of "elevating my host" to the dignity of high +statesmanship on the mere plea of his hospitality. + +We have had some able men in our dependencies who were not in the least +given to social enjoyments, who neither understood them for themselves +nor thought of them for others--Sir Charles Napier, for instance. And +who, let me ask, would have lost the services of such a man to the +State, because he had not the tastes of a Sir William Curtis, nor could +add a "Cubitt" to his stature? + +All discretionary powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and +pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and +complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man. +Not to say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a +Government in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering +a premium for profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial +fellow-subjects the very habits and tastes which are the bane and +destruction of young communities. + +Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the +ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the +509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland +had really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his +administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one +undeniable test of an ex-Governor's due claim to a pension, since on the +question of a man's hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There +are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours' bordeaux. I +repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in +a police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, "Drunk +and Disorderly," so should any commission on pensions accept as valid +grounds for a pension, "Insolvent and a Bankrupt." + +To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply +nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day +has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not +invited him to breakfast to-morrow. + + + + +A GRUMBLE. + +I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of +course--I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in the +same position to enjoy it as I was--years ago. I am delicate about the +figures, for Mrs O'D. occasionally reads these sketches, and might feel +a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat--I wonder is +life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance with it? My +impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all the same +elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young people, and +witty people, and, better, there are beautiful people, in abundance. +There are great houses as of yore, maintained, perhaps, with even more +than bygone splendour: the horses are as good--the dogs as good--the +trout-streams as well stocked--the grouse as abundant--foreign travel is +more easy--all travel is more facile--there are more books and more +illustrated newspapers; and yet, with all these advantages--very +tangible advantages too--I do not think the present occupants make the +house as pleasant as their fathers did, and for the very simple reason, +that they never try. + +Indifferentism is the tone of the day. No one must be eager, pleased, +displeased, interested, or anxious about anything. Life is to be treated +as a tiresome sort of thing, but which is far too much beneath one to +be thought of seriously--a wearisome performance, which good manners +require you should sit out, though nothing obliges you to applaud or +even approve of it. This is the theory, and we have been most successful +in reducing it to practice. We are immensely bored, and we take good +care so shall be our neighbour. Just as we have voted that there is +nothing new, nothing strange, nothing amusing, we defy any one to differ +with us, on pain of pronouncing him vulgar. North American Indians are +not more case-hardened against any show of suffering under torture than +are our well-bred people against any manifestation of showing pleasure +in anything. "It wasn't bad," is about the highest expression of our +praise; and I doubt if we would accord more to heaven--if we got there. +The grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of +amusement without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor +is any expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He +would admit that "the Governor"--meaning his father--was surprised; he +would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As +the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the very +expression of the features. They are intensely like each other. We are +told that a shepherd will know the actual faces of all the sheep in his +flock, distinguishing each from each at a glance. I am curious to know +if the Bishop of London knows even the few lost sheep that browse about +Rotten Eow of an afternoon, and who are so familiar to us in Leech's +sketches. There they are--whiskered, bearded, and bored; fine-looking +animals in their way, but just as much living creatures in 'Punch' +as they are yonder. It is said that they only want the stimulus of a +necessity, something of daring to tempt, or something of difficulty to +provoke them, to be just as bold and energetic as ever their fathers +were. I don't deny it. I am only complaining of the system which makes +sheep of them, reduces life to a dreary table-land, making the stupid +fellows the standard, and coming down to their level for the sake of +uniformity. Formerly they who had more wit, more smartness, more worldly +knowledge than their neighbours, enjoyed a certain pre-eminence; the +flash of their agreeability lighted up the group they talked in, and +they were valued and sought after. Now the very homage rendered, even in +this small way, was at least a testimony that superiority was recognised +and its claims admitted. What is the case now? Apathy is excellence, +and the nearest approach to insensibility is the greatest eminence +attainable. + +In the Regency, when George IV. was Prince, the clever talkers certainly +abounded; and men talk well or ill exactly as there is a demand for +the article. The wittiest conversationalist that ever existed would be +powerless in a circle of these modern "Unsurprised ones." Their vacant +self-possession would put down all the Grattans and Currans and Jeffreys +and Sydney Smiths in the world. I defy the most brilliant, the readiest, +the most genial of talkers to vivify the mass of inert dulness he will +find now at every dinner and in every drawing-room. + +The code of modern manners is to make ease the first of all objects; +and, in order that the stupidest man may be at his ease, the ablest is +to be sacrificed. He who could bring vast stores of agreeability to +the common stock must not show his wares, because there are a store of +incapables who have nothing for the market. + +They have a saying in Donegal, that "the water is so strong it requires +two whiskies;" but I would ask what amount of "spirits" would enliven +this dreariness; what infusion of pleasantry would make Brown and Jones +endurable when multiplied by what algebraists call an _x_--an unknown +quantity--of other Browns and Joneses? + +We are constantly calling attention to the fact of the influence exerted +over morals and manners in France by the prevailing tone of the lighter +literature, and we mark the increasing licentiousness that has followed +such works as those of Eugene Sue and the younger Dumas. Let us not +forget to look at home, and see if, in the days when the Waverleys +constituted almost all our lighter reading, the tone of society was not +higher, the spirit more heroic, the current of thought and expression +purer, than in these realistic days, when we turn for amusement to +descriptions of every quaint vulgarity that makes up the life of the +boarding-house or the strolling theatre. + +The glorious heroism of Scott's novels was a fine stream to turn +into the turbid river of our worldliness and money-seeking. It was +of incalculable benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble +devotion, high-hearted courage, and unsullied purity. + +I can remember the time when, as freshmen in our first year, we went +about talking to each other of 'Ivanhoe' and 'Kenilworth;' and I can +remember, too, when the glorious spirit of those novels had so possessed +us, that our romance elevated and warmed us to an unconscious imitation +of the noble thoughts and deeds we had been reading. + +Smile if you like at our boyish enthusiasm, it was better than the +mocking spirit engendered by all this realism, or the insensate craving +after stimulus taught by sensation novels. + +Now, I am not old enough to remember the great talkers of the time when +George III. was King, or those who made Carlton House famous; but I +belonged to a generation where these men were remembered, and where it +was common enough to hear stories of their Attic nights, those _noctes +caenaeque deorum_ which really in brilliancy must have far transcended +anything that Europe could boast of conversational power. The youth +of the time I speak of were full of these traditions. "If I am not the +rose, I grew near one," was no foolish boast; and certainly there was +both in the tone of conversation and the temper of society a sentiment +that showed how the great men had influenced their age, and how, even +after their sun had gone down, a warm tint remained to remind the world +of the glorious splendour that had departed. + +Being an Irishman, it is to Ireland I must go for my illustration, and +it is my pride to remember that I have seen some of those who were, +in an age of no common convivial excellence, amongst the first and the +greatest. They are gone, and I may speak of them by name--Lord +Plunkett, the Chief-Justice Bushe, Mr Casey, Sir Philip Crampton, Barre +Beresford--I need not go on. I have but to recall the leading men at the +bar, to make up a list of the most brilliant talkers that ever delighted +society. Nor was the soil exhausted with these; there came, so to say, a +second crop--a younger order of men--less versed in affairs, it is true, +less imbued with that vigorous conviviality that prevailed in their +fathers' days--but of these I must not speak, for they have now grown up +to great dignities and stations, they have risen to eminence and honour +and repute, and might possibly be ashamed if it were known that they +were once so agreeable. Let me, however, record one who is no more, +but who possessed the charm of companionship to a degree I never knew +equalled in all my varied experiences of life,--one who could bring the +stores of a well-stocked mind, rich in scholarship, to bear upon any +passing incident, blended with the fascination of a manner that was +irresistible. Highly imaginative, and with a power of expression that +was positively marvellous, he gave to ordinary conversation an elevation +that actually conferred honour on those who were associated with it; +and high above all these gifts and graces, a noble nature, generous, +hopeful, and confiding. With an intellect that challenged any rivalry, +he had, in all that touched worldly matters, the simplicity of a child. +To my countrymen it is needless I should tell of whom I speak; to +others, I say his name was Mortimer O'Sullivan. The mellow cadence of +his winning voice, the beam of his honest eye, the generous smile that +never knew scorn, are all before me as I write, and I will write no +more. + + + + +OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. + +There is a story current of a certain very eminent French naturalist, +who is so profoundly impressed by the truth of the Darwinian theory, +that he never passes the cage where the larger apes are confined in +the Jardin des Plantes without taking off his hat, making a profound +obeisance, and wishing them a _bon jour_. + +This recognition is touching and graceful. The homage of the witches to +him who should be king hereafter, had in it a sort of mockery that made +it horrible; but here we have an act of generous courtesy, based alike +on the highest discoveries of science and the rules of the truest +good-breeding. + +The learned professor, with all the instincts of great acquirements +and much self-knowledge united, admits them at once to equality and +fraternity--the liberty, perhaps, they will have to wait some time +for; but in that they are no worse off than some millions of their +fellow-countrymen. + +One might speculate long--I don't know exactly how profitably--on the +sense of gratitude these creatures must feel for this touching kindness, +how they must long for the good man's visit, how they must wonder by +what steps he arrived at this astonishing knowledge, how surprised they +must feel that he does not make more converts; and, last of all, what +pains they must take to exhibit in their outward bearing and behaviour +that they are not unworthy of the high consideration he bestows on them! +Before him no monkey-tricks, no apish indecorums--none even of those +passing levities which young gorillas will indulge in just like other +youths. No; all must be staid, orderly, and respectful--heads held well +up--hands at rest--tails nowhere; in fact, a port and bearing that would +defy the most scrutinising observer to say that they were less eligible +company than that he had just quitted at the cafe. + +I own I have not seen them during the moment of the Professor's passage. +I am unable to state authentically whether all this be as I surmise, but +I have a strong impression it must be. Indeed, reflecting on the habits +and modes of the species, I should be rather disposed to believe +them given to an exuberant show of gratitude than to anything like +indifference, and expect to witness demonstrations of delight more +natural possibly than graceful. + +Now, I have not the most remote intention of impugning the Professor's +honesty. I give him credit--full credit--for high purpose, and for high +courage. "These poor brothers of ours," says he, "have tails, it is +true, and they have not the hypocampus major; but let me ask you, +Monsieur le Duc, or you, Monseigneur the Archbishop, will you dare to +affirm on oath that you yourself are endowed with a hypocampus major +or minor? Are you prepared to stand forward and declare that the +convolutions of your brain are of the regulation standard--that the +medullary part is not disproportioned to the cineritious--that your falx +is not thicker or thinner than it ought--and that your optic thalami are +not too prominent? And if you are not ready to do this, what avails all +your assumption of superiority? In these--they are not many--lie the +alleged differences between you and your caged cousins yonder." Thus +speaks, or might speak, the Professor; and, I repeat, I respect +his candour; but still I would venture to submit one small, perhaps +ungenerous doubt, and ask, Would he, acting on the noble instincts that +move him, vote these creatures an immediate and entire emancipation, or +would he not rather wait a while--a few years, say--till the habit +of sitting on chairs had worn off some of the tail, and a greater +familiarity with society suggested not to store up their dinner in their +jaws? Would he like to see them at once take their places in public +life, become public functionaries, and ministers, and grand cordons? + +Would he not rather, with that philosophy his country eminently teaches, +say, "I will do the pity and the compassion. To me be the sympathetic +part of a graceful sorrow. To posterity I bequeath the recognition of +these poor captives. Let them be liberated, by all means; but let it +be when I shall be no longer here to witness it. Let others face that +glorious millennium of gorilla greatness." + +I am afraid he would reason in this fashion; it is one thing to have an +opinion, and to have what Frenchmen call the "courage of your opinion." +He would say, "If Nature work surely, she works slowly; her changes are +measured, regular, and progressive. With her there are no paroxysms; +all is orderly--all is gradual It took centuries of centuries to advance +these poor creatures to the point they occupy; their next stage on the +journey is perhaps countless years away. I will not attempt to forestall +what I cannot assist. I will let Time do its work. They are not +ill-treated, besides; that large creature with the yellow eyebrows +grinned at me very pleasantly this morning, and the she-ourang-outang +was whipping her infant most naturally as I came by." + +"What a cold-blooded philanthropy is this!" cries another. "You say +these are our brothers and our kinsmen; you declare that anatomy only +can detect some small and insignificant discrepancies between us, and +that even in these there are some of whose functions we know nothing, +and others, such as the prehensile power, where the ape has the best +of it. What do you mean by keeping them there 'cribbed, cabined, and +confined'? Is a slight frontal inclination to disqualify a person from +being a prefect? Is an additional joint in the coccyx to prevent a man +sitting on the woolsack, or an extra inch in the astragalus to interfere +with his wearing spurs? If there be minute differences between us, +intercourse will abolish them. It will be of inestimable service +to yourselves to come into contact with these fresh, fine, generous +natures, uncontaminated by the vices of an effete and worn-out +civilisation. Great as are the benefits you extend to them, they will +repay you tenfold in the advantages to yourselves. Away with your +unworthy prejudices about a 'black pigment' and long heels! Take them to +your hearts and your hearths. You will find them brave--ay, braver than +your own race. Their teeth are whiter and their nails longer; there is +not a relation in life in which you will dare to call yourself their +better." + +I will go no farther, not merely because I have no liking for my +theme, but because I am pilfering. All these arguments--the very words +themselves--I have stolen from an American writer, who, in Horace +Greeley fashion, is addressing his countrymen on the subject of negro +equality. He not alone professes to show the humanity of the project, +but its policy--its even necessity. He declares to the whites, "You +want these people; without them you will sink lower and lower into that +effete degeneracy into which years of licentiousness have sunk you. +These gorillas--black men, I mean--are virtuous; they are abstemious; +they have a little smell, but no sensuality; they will make admirable +wives for your warriors; and who knows but one may be the mother of a +President as strikingly handsome as Ape Lincoln himself!" There is +no doubt much to be said for our long-heeled friends, whether with or +without a hypocampus major. I am not very certain that we compliment +them in the best taste when the handsomest thing we can say of them is, +that they are very like ourselves! It is our human mode, however, of +expressing admiration, and resembles the exclamation of the Oberland +peasant on seeing a pretty girl, "How handsome she'd be if she only had +a _goitre!_" + + + + +THE RULE NISI. + +A great many sea-captains discourage the use of life-preservers and +floating-belts on board ships of war, on the simple ground that men +should not be taught to rely for their safety on anything but what +conduces to save the ship. "Let there be but one thought, one effort," +say they, "and let that be for the common safety." If they be +right--and I suspect they are--we have made a famous blunder by our late +legislation about divorce. Of all the crafts that ever were launched, +marriage is one from which fewest facilities of desertion should be +provided. + +Romanism makes very few mistakes in worldly matters. There is no feature +of that Church so remarkable as its deep study and thorough acquaintance +with all the moods and wants and wishes of humanity. Whatever its +demerits, one cannot but admit that no other religion ever approached +it in intimacy with the human heart in all its emotions and in all its +strivings, whether for good or evil. + +Rome declares against all breach of the marriage tie. The Church, with +a spirit of concession it knows how to carry through all its dealings, +modifies, softens, assuages, but never severs conjugalism. It makes +the tie occasionally a slip-knot, but it never cuts the string, and I +strongly suspect that it is wise in its legislation. + +For a great many years we gave the policy that amount of imitation we +are wont to accord to Romanist practices; that is, we follow them in +part--we adopt the coat, but, to show that we are not mere imitators, +we cut off one of the skirts; and if we do not make the garment more +graceful, we at least consult our dignity, and that is something. We +made divorce the privilege of men rich enough to come to Parliament for +relief; we did with the question what some one proposed we should do +with poisons--make them so costly that only wealthy men should be able +to afford the luxury of suicide. So long as men believed that divorce +was immoral, I don't think any one complained that it should be limited +to persons in affluence. We are a lord-loving race, we English, and are +quite ready to concede that our superiors should have more vices than +ourselves, just as they have more horses and more pheasants; and we +deemed it nothing odd or strange that he, whose right it was to walk +into the House of Peers, should walk out of matrimony when it suited +him. + +Who knows?--perhaps we were flattered by the thought that great folk so +far conceded to a vulgar prejudice as to marry at all. Perhaps we hailed +their entrance into conjugalism as we are wont to do their appearance +at a circus or a public garden--a graceful acknowledgment that they +occasionally felt something like ourselves: at all events, we liked +it, and we showed we liked it by the zeal with which we read those +descriptions in newspapers of marriages in high life, and the delight +with which we talked to each other of people we never saw, nor probably +ever should see. It was not too much, therefore, to concede to them this +privilege of escape. It was very condescending of them to come to the +play at all; we had no right to insist that they should sit out the +whole performance. + +By degrees, however, what with rich cotton-lords, and cheap +cyclopaedias, and penny trains, and popular lectures, there got up a +sort of impression--it was mere impression for a long time--that great +folk had more than their share of the puddings' plums; and agitators +began to bestir themselves. What were the privileges of the higher +classes which would sit most gracefully on their inferiors? Naturally +we bethought us of their vices. It was not always so easy to adopt my +lord's urbanity, his unassuming dignity, his well-bred ease; but one +might reasonably aspire to be as wicked. Sabbath-breaking had long since +ceased to be the privilege of the better classes, and so men's minds +reverted to the question of divorce. "Let us get rid of our wives!" +cried they; "who knows but the day may come when we shall kill +woodcocks?" + +Now the law, in making divorce a very costly process, had simply desired +to secure its infrequency. It was not really meant to be a rich man's +privilege. What was sought for was to oppose as many obstacles as could +be found, to throw in as many rocks as possible into the channel, so +that only he who was intently bent on navigating the stream would ever +have the energy to clear the passage. Nobody ever dreamed of making it +an open roadstead. In point of fact, the oft-boasted equality before +the law is a myth. The penalty which a labourer could endure without +hardship might break my lord's heart; and in the very case before us of +divorce, nothing can possibly be more variable than the estimate formed +of the divorced individuals, according to the class of society they move +in. + +What would be a levity here, would be a serious immorality there; and +a little lower down again, a mere domestic arrangement, slightly more +decorous and a shade more legal than the old system of the halter and +the public sale. It was declared, however, that this "relief"--that is +the popular phrase in such matters--should be extended to the poor +man. It was decided that the privilege to get rid of a wife was, as +Mr Gladstone says of the electoral right, the inalienable claim of a +freeman, and the only course was to lower the franchise. + +Let us own, too, we were ashamed, as we had good right to be ashamed, of +our old _crim. con._ law. Foreigners, especially Frenchmen, had rung +the changes on our coarse venality and corruption; and we had come to +perceive--it took some time, though--that moneyed damages were scarcely +the appropriate remedy for injured honour. + +Last of all, free-trade notions had turned all our heads: we were +for getting rid of all restrictions on every side; and we went about +repeating to each other those wise saws about buying in the cheapest and +selling in the dearest market, and having whatever we wanted, and doing +whatever we liked with our own. We are, there is no denying it, a nation +of shopkeepers; and the spirit of trade can be tracked through every +relation of our lives. It is commerce gives the tone to all our +dealings; and we have carried its enactments into the most sacred of all +our institutions, and imparted a "limited liability" even to marriage. + +Cheapness became the desideratum of our age, We insisted on cheap gloves +and shoes and wine and ribbons, and why not cheap divorces? Philosophers +tell us that the alternate action of the seasons is one of the purest +and most enduring of all sources of enjoyment; that perpetual summer +or spring would weary and depress; but in the ever-changing aspect +of nature, and in the stimulation which diversity excites, we find an +unfailing gratification. If, therefore, it be pleasant to be married, +it may also be agreeable to be unmarried. It takes some time, however, +before society accommodates itself to these new notions. The newly +divorced, be it man or woman, comes into the world like a patient after +the smallpox--you are not quite certain whether the period of contagion +is past, or if it be perfectly safe to go up and talk to him. In fact, +you delay doing so till some strong-minded friend or other goes boldly +forward and shakes the convalescent by the hand. Even still there will +be timid people who know perhaps that their delicacy of constitution +renders them peculiarly sensitive, and who will keep aloof after all. Of +course, these and similar prejudices will give way to time. We have +our Probate Court; and the phrase _co-respondent_ is now familiar as a +household word. + +Now, however tempting the theme, I am not going to inquire whether we +have done wisely or the reverse by this piece of legislation; whether, +by instilling certain precepts of self-control, a larger spirit of +accommodation, and a more conciliatory disposition generally, we might +have removed some of the difficulties without the heroic remedy of the +decree _nisi_; whether, in fact, it might not have been better to teach +people to swim, or even float, rather than make this great issue of +cheap life-belts. I am so practical that I rather address myself to +profit by what is, than endeavour by any change to make it better. We +live in a statistical age. We are eternally inquiring who it is wants +this, who consumes that, who goes to such a place, who is liable to this +or that malady. Classification is a passion with us; and we have bulky +volumes to teach us what sorts of people have chest affections, what are +most prone to stomachic diseases, who have ophthalmia, and who the +gout. We are also instructed as to the kind of persons most disposed to +insanity, and we have a copious list of occupations given us which +more or less incline those who profess them to derangement. Even the +Civil-Service Examiners have contributed their share to this mass of +entertaining knowledge, and shown from what parts of the kingdom bad +spellers habitually come, what counties are celebrated for cacography, +and in what districts etymology is an unknown thing. Would it not, then, +be a most interesting and instructive statistic that would give us +a tabular view of divorce, showing in what classes frailty chiefly +prevailed, with the relative sexes, and also a glimpse at the ages? +Imagine what a light the statement would throw on the morality of +classes, and what an incalculable benefit to parents in the choice of a +career for their children! For instance, no sensible father would select +a life of out-door exposure for a weak-chested son, or make a sailor of +one with an incurable sea-sickness. In the same way would he be guided +by the character of his children as to the perils certain careers would +expose them to. + +A passing glance at the lists of divorce shows us that no +"promovent"--it is a delicate title, and I like it--no promovent figures +oftener than a civil engineer. Now, how instructive to inquire why! + +What is there in embankments and earthworks and culverts that should +dispose the wife of him who makes them to infidelity? Why should a +tunnel only lead to domestic treachery? why must a cutting sever the +heart that designs it? I do not know; I cannot even guess. My ingenuity +stands stockstill at the question, and I can only re-echo, Why? + +Next amongst the "predisposed" come schoolmasters, plasterers, &c. What +unseen thread runs through the woof of these natures, apparently so +little alike? It is the boast of modern science to settle much that +once was puzzling, and reconcile to a system what formerly appeared +discordant. How I wish some great Babbage-like intellect would bestir +itself in this inquiry. + +Surely ethical questions are as well worthy of investigation as purely +physical or mechanical ones, and yet we ignore them most ignominiously. +We think no expense too great to test an Armstrong or a Whitworth gun; +we spend thousands to ascertain how far it will carry, what destructive +force it possesses, and how long it will resist explosion;--why not +appoint a commission of this nature on "conjugate;" why not ascertain, +if we can, what is the weak point in matrimony, and why are explosions +so frequent? Is the "cast" system a bad one, and must we pronounce +"welding" a failure? or, last of all, however wounding to our national +vanity, do "they understand these things better in France"? + + + + +ON CLIMBING BOYS. + +With the common fate of all things human, it is said that every career +and walk in life has some one peculiar disparagement--something that, +attaching to the duties of the station as a sort of special grievance, +serves to show that none of us, no matter how favoured, are to imagine +there can be any lot exempted from its share of troubles. Ask the +soldier, the sailor, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, or the actor, +and each will give you a friendly warning to adopt any other career than +his own. + +In most cases the _quid amarum_, the one bitter drop, is to be found in +the career itself, something that belongs to that one craft or calling; +just as the white-lead colic, for instance, is the fatal malady of +painters. There are, however, a few rare cases in which the detracting +element attaches itself to the followers and not to the profession, as +though it would seem there was a something in the daily working of that +peculiar craft which warped the minds and coerced the natures of men +to be different from what temperament and character should have made of +them. + +The two classes which most prominently exhibit what I mean are somewhat +socially separated, but they have a number of small analogies in common. +They are Sweeps and Statesmen! It would be tempting--but I resist the +temptation--to show how many points of resemblance unite them--how each +works in the dark, in a small, narrow, confined sphere, without view or +outlet; how the tendency of each is to scratch his way upwards and gain +the top, caring wonderfully little how black and dirty the process has +made him. One might even go farther, and mark how, when indolence or +weariness suggested sloth, the stimulus of a little fire underneath, +whether a few lighted straws or a Birmingham mass-meeting, was sure to +quicken progress and excite activity. + +Again, I make this statement on the faith of Lord Shaftesbury, who +pronounced it before their Lordships in the Upper House:--"It is no +uncommon thing to buy and sell them. There is a regular traffic in them; +and through the agency of certain women, not the models of their sex, +you can get any quantity of them you want." Last of all, on the same +high authority, we are told of their perfect inutility, "since there is +nothing that they do could not be better done by a machine." + +I resist, as I say, all temptations of this kind, and simply address +myself to the one point of similarity between them which illustrates the +theory with which I have started--and now to state this as formally as +I am able. Let me declare that in all the varied employments of life +I have never met with men who have the same dread of their possible +successors as sweeps and statesmen. The whole aim and object of each +is directed, first of all, to keep those who do their work as little +as possible, well knowing that the time will come when these small +creatures will find the space too confined for them, and set up for +themselves. + +A volume might be written on the subtle artifices adopted to keep them +"little"--the browbeatings, the insults, the crushing cruelties, the +spare diet intermixed with occasional stimulants, the irregular hours, +and the heat and confinement of the sphere they work in. Still, nature +is stronger than all these crafty contrivances. The little sweep will +grow into the big sweep, and the small under-sec. will scratch his way +up to the Cabinet I will not impose on my reader the burden of carrying +along with him this double load. I will address myself simply to one +of these careers--the Statesman's. It is a strange but a most +unquestionable fact, that no other class of men are so ill-disposed to +those who are the most likely to succeed them--not of an Opposition, +for that would be natural enough, but of their own party, of their +own colour, of their own rearing. Let us be just: when a man has long +enjoyed place, power, and pre-eminence, dispensed honours and pensions +and patronage, it is not a small trial to discover that one of those +little creatures he has made--whose first scraper and brush he himself +paid for--I can't get rid of the sweep out of my head--will turn +insolently on him and declare that he will no longer remain a +subordinate, but go and set up for himself. This is excessively hard, +and might try the temper of a man even without a fit of the gout. + +It is exactly what has just happened; an apprentice, called Gladstone, +having made a sort of connection in Manchester and Birmingham, a +district abounding in tall chimneys, has given warning to his master Pam +that he will not sweep any longer. He is a bold, aspiring sort of lad, +and he is not satisfied with saying--as many others have done--that he +is getting too broad-shouldered for his work; but he declares that the +chimneys for the future must be all made bigger and the flues wider, +just because he likes climbing, and doesn't mean to abandon it. There is +no doubt of it. Manchester and Stockport and Birmingham have put this in +his head. Their great smelting-houses and steam-power factories require +big chimneys; and being an overbearing set of self-made vulgar fellows, +they say they ought to be a law to all England. You don't want to make +cotton-twist, or broad-gauge iron; so much the worse for you. It is +the grandest object of humanity. Providence created men to manufacture +printed cottons and cheap penknives. We of Manchester understand what +our American friends call manifest destiny; we know and feel ours will +be--to rule England. Once let us only introduce big chimneys, and you'll +see if you won't take to spinning-jennies and mules and treddles; +and there's that climbing boy Gladstone declares he'll not leave the +business, but go up, no matter how dirty the flue, the day we want him. + +Some shrewd folk, who see farther into the millstone than their +neighbours, have hinted that this same boy is of a crotchety, intriguing +type, full of his own ingenuity, and enamoured of his own subtlety; +so that make the chimney how great you will, he'll not go up it, but +scratch out another flue for himself, and come out, heaven knows where +or how. Indeed, they tell that on one occasion of an alarm of fire +in the house--caused by a pantry-boy called Russell burning some +wasterpaper instead of going up the chimney as he was ordered--this +same Will began to tell how the Greeks had no chimneys, and a mass +of antiquarian rubbish of the same kind, so that his master, losing +patience, exclaimed, "Of all plagues in the world he knew of none to +compare with these 'climbing boys!'" + + + + +LINGUISTS + +There are two classes of people not a little thought of, and even +caressed, in society, and for whom I have ever felt a very humble +estimate--the men who play all manner of games, and the men who speak +several languages. I begin with the latter, and declare that, after +a somewhat varied experience of life, I never met a linguist that was +above a third-rate man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced +upon a really able man who had the talent for languages. + +I am well aware that it sounds something little short of a heresy to +make this declaration. It is enough to make the blood of Civil-Service +Commissioners run cold to hear it. It sounds illiberal--and, worse, +it seems illogical. Why should any intellectual development imply +deficiency? Why should an acquirement argue a defect? I answer, I don't +know--any more than I know why sanguineous people are hot-tempered, and +leuco-phlegmatic ones are more brooding in their wrath. If--for I do not +ask to be anything higher than empirical--if I find that parsimonious +people have generally thin noses, and that the snub is associated with +the spendthrift, I never trouble myself with the demonstration, but I +hug the fact, and endeavour to apply it. + +In the same spirit, if I hear a man in a salon change from French to +German and thence diverge into Italian and Spanish, with possibly a +brief excursion into something Scandinavian or Sclav--at home in each +and all--I would no more think of associating him in my mind with +anything responsible in station or commanding in intellect, than I +should think of connecting the servant that announced me with the last +brilliant paper in the 'Quarterly.' + +No man with a strongly-marked identity--and no really able man ever +existed without such--can subordinate that identity so far as to put on +the foreigner; and without this he never can attain that mastery of +a foreign language that makes the linguist. To be able to repeat +conventionalities--bringing them in at the telling moment, adjusting +phrases to emergencies, as a joiner adapts the pieces of wood to his +carpentry--may be, and is, a very neat and a very dexterous performance, +but it is scarcely the exercise to which a large capacity will address +itself. Imitation must be, in one sense or other, the stronghold of the +linguist--imitation of expression, of style, of accent, of cadence, of +tone. The linguist must not merely master grammar, but he must manage +gutturals. The mimicry must go farther: in simulating expression it must +affect the sentiment. You are not merely borrowing the clothes, but you +are pretending to put on the feelings, the thoughts, the prejudices +of the wearer. Now, what man with a strong nature can merge himself so +entirely in his fictitious being as not to burst the seams and tear the +lining of a garment that only impedes the free action of his limbs, and +actually threatens the very extinction of his respiration? + +It is not merely by their greater adaptiveness that women are better +linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their +more subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which +are consequently less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual +self. And what is it that makes the men of mark or note, the cognate +signs of human algebra, but these same characteristics; not always +good, not always pleasant, not always genial, but always associated with +something that declares preeminence, and pronounces their owner to be a +"representative man"? + +When Lord Ward replied to Prince Schwartzenberg's flippant remark on +the bad French of English diplomatists by the apology, "that we had not +enjoyed the advantage of having our capital cities so often occupied by +French troops as some of our neighbours," he uttered not merely a smart +epigram but a great philosophical truth. It was not alone that we had +not possessed the opportunity to pick up an accent, but that we had not +subordinated our minds and habits to French modes and ways of thought, +and that the tone and temper of the French people had not been beaten +into us by the roll of a French drum. One may buy an accomplishment +too dearly. It is possible to pay too much even for a Parisian +pronunciation! Not only have I never found a linguist a man of eminence, +but I have never seen a linguist who talked well. Fluent they are, of +course, like the Stecknadel gun of the Prussians, they can fire without +cessation, but, like the same weapon, they are comparatively aimless. It +is a _feu roulant_, with plenty of noise and some smoke, but very +"few casualties" announce the success. The greatest linguist of modern +Europe, Mezzofanti, was a most inferior man. Of the countries whose +dialect he spoke to perfection, he knew nothing. An old dictionary would +have been to the full as companionable. I find it very hard not to be +personal just now, and give a list--it would be a long one--of all the +tiresome people I know, who talk four, five, some of them six modern +languages perfectly. It is only with an effort I abstain from mentioning +the names of some well-known men who are the charming people at Borne +and Vienna every winter, and each summer are the delight of Ems, of +Berlin, and of Ischl. What tyrants these fellows are, too, over the +men who have not got their gift of tongues! how they out-talk them and +overbear them! with what an insolent confidence they fall back upon +the petty superiority of their fluency, and lord it over those who are +immeasurably their masters! Just as Blondin might run along the rigging +of a three-decker, and pretend that his agility entitled him to command +a squadron! + +Nothing, besides, is more imposing than the mock eloquence of good +French. The language in itself is so adaptive, it is so felicitous, +it abounds in such innumerable pleasant little analogies, such nice +conceits and suggestive drolleries, that he who acquires these has at +will a whole armoury of attack and defence. It actually requires years +of habit to accustom us to a display that we come at last to discover +implies no brilliancy whatever in him who exhibits, though it argues +immense resources in the treasury from which he derives this wealth. + +I have known scores of delightful talkers--Frenchmen--who had no other +charm than what their language lent them. They were neither profound, +nor cultivated, nor witty--some were not even shrewd or acute; but all +were pleasant--pleasant in the use of a conversational medium, of +which the world has not the equal--a language that has its set form of +expression for every social eventuality, and that hits to a nicety every +contingency of the "salon;" for it is no more the language of natural +people than the essence of the perfumer's shop is the odour of a field +flower. It is pre-eminently the medium of people who talk with tall +glasses before them, and an incense of truffles around them, and +well-dressed women--clever and witty, and not over-scrupulous in their +opinions--for their company. Then, French is unapproachable; English +would be totally unsuited to the occasion, and German even more so. +There is a flavour of sauer kraut about that unhappy tongue that would +vulgarise a Queen if she talked it. + +To attain, therefore, the turns and tricks of this language--for it is +a Chinese puzzle in its involvements--what a life must a man have +led! What "terms" he must have "put in" at cafes and restaurants! +What seasons at small theatres--tripots and worse! What nights at +bals-masques, Chateaux des Fleurs, and Cadrans rouges et bleus! What +doubtful company he must have often kept! What company a little more +than doubtful occasionally! What iniquities of French romance must he +have read, with all the cardinal virtues arrayed as the evil destinies +of humanity, and every wickedness paraded as that natural expansion of +the heart which alone raises man above the condition of the brute! I +ask, if proficiency must imply profligacy, would you not rather find a +man break down in his verbs than in his virtue? Would you not prefer +a little inaccuracy in his declensions to a total forgetfulness of the +decalogue? And, lastly of all, what man of real eminence could have +masqueraded--for it is masquerading--for years in this motley, and come +out, after all, with even a rag of his identity? + +Many people would scruple to play at cards with a stranger whose mode of +dealing and general manipulation of the pack bespoke daily familiarity +with the play-table. They would infer that he was a regular and +professional gambler. In the very same way, and for the selfsame reason, +would I carefully avoid any close intimacy with the Englishman of fluent +French, well knowing he could not have graduated in that perfection save +at a certain price. But it is not at the moral aspect of the question I +desire particularly to look. I assert--and I repeat my assertion--that +these talkers of many tongues are poor creatures. There is no initiative +in them--they suggest nothing--they are vendors of second-hand wares, +and are not always even good selectors of what they sell. It is only +in narrative that they are at all endurable. They can _raconter_, +certainly; and so long as they go from salon to salon repeating in +set phrase some little misadventure or accident of the day, they are +amusing; but this is not conversation, and they do not converse. + +"Every time a man acquires a new language, is he a new man?" is supposed +to have been a saying of Charles V.--a sentiment that, if he uttered it, +means more of sarcasm than of praise; for it is the very putting off +a man's identity that establishes his weakness. All real force of +character excludes dualism. Every eminent, every able man has a certain +integrity in his nature that rejects this plasticity. + +It is a very common habit, particularly with newspaper writers, to +ascribe skill in languages, and occasionally in games, to distinguished +people. It was but the other day we were told that Garibaldi spoke ten +languages fluently. Now Garibaldi is not really master of two. He +speaks French tolerably; and his native language is not Italian, but +a patois-Genoese. Cavour was called a linguist with almost as little +truth; but people repeat the story, just as they repeat that Napoleon I. +was a great chess-player. If his statecraft and his strategy had been on +a par with his chess, we should never have heard of Tilsit or Wagram. + +Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, and George Canning, each of +whom administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, +were not linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence +on record that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not +want to decry the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that +linguists--and through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists--are +for the most part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than +by the gift of tongues; and I want to protest against the undue +pre-eminence accorded to the possessors of a small accomplishment, and +the readiness with which the world, especially the world of society, +awards homage to an acquirement in which a boarding-school Miss can +surpass Lord Brougham. I mean to say a word or two about those who have +skill in games; but as they are of a higher order of intelligence, I'll +wait till I have got "fresh wind" ere I treat of _them_. + + + + +THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. + +As there are few better tests of the general health of an individual +than in the things he imagines to be injurious to him, so there is +no surer evidence of the delicate condition of a State than in the +character of those who are assumed to be dangerous to it. Now, after all +that has been said of Rome and the corruptions of Roman government, I do +not know anything so decidedly damnatory as the fact, to which allusion +was lately made in Parliament, that the Papal Government had ordered Mr +Home, the spiritualist, to quit the city and the States of his Holiness, +and not to return to them. + +In what condition, I would ask, must a country be when such a man is +regarded as dangerous? and in what aspect of his character does the +danger consist? + +Do we want ghosts or spirits to reveal to us any more of the iniquities +of that State than we already know? Is there a detail of its corrupt +administration that the press of Europe has not spread broadcast over +the world? What could Mr Home and all his spirits tell us of peculation, +theft, subornation, bigotry, and oppression, that the least observant +traveller has not brought home with him? + +And then, as to the man himself, how puerile it is to give him this +importance! The solitary bit of cleverness about him is his statement +that he has no control whatever over the spirits that attend him. Asking +him not to summon them, is pretty like asking Mr Windham not to send for +his creditors. They come pretty much as they like, and probably their +visits are about equally profitable. + +In this respect Home belongs to a very low order of his art. When Bosco +promises to make a bouquet out of a mouse-trap, or Houdin engages to +concoct a batter-pudding in your hat, each keeps his word. There is no +subterfuge about the temper the spirits may happen to be in, or of their +willingness or unwillingness to present themselves. The thing is done, +and we see it--or we think we see it, which comes much to the same. + +With this provision of escape Mr Home secures himself against all +failure. Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more +discriminating and observant character than he liked or anticipated, +and the exhibition in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to +do was, to aver that the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown +on _his_ part Homer was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon +was indisposed to meet company, and there was the end of it. You were +invited to meet celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they would +present themselves. + +On the other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered--when +the seance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and +hysterical as they ought to be--when the nervous lady sat beside the +timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia--the +artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that +astounded even himself. What limit is there, besides, to contagional +sympathy? Look at the crowded theatre, with its many-minded spectators, +and see how one impulse, communicated occasionally by a hireling, will +set the whole mass in a ferment of enthusiastic delight. Mark, too, how +the smile, that plays like an eddy on a lake, deepens into a laugh, and +is caught up by another and another, till the whole storm breaks out in +a hearty ocean of merriment. These, if you like, are spirits; but the +great masters of them are not men like Mr Home--they have ever been, +and still are, of a very different order. Shakespeare and Moliere and +Cervantes knew something of the mode to summon these imps, and could +make them come at their bidding besides. + +Was it--to come back to what I started with--was it in any spirit of +rivalry that the Papal Government drove Mr Home out of Home? Was it +that, assuming to have a monopoly in the wares he dealt in, they +would not stand a contraband trade? If so, their ground is at least +defensible; for what chance of attraction would there be for the winking +Virgin in competition with him who could "make a young lady ascend to +the ceiling, and come slowly down like a parachute!"--a spiritual fact +I have heard from witnesses who really, so far as character went, might +challenge any incredulity. + +If the Cardinals were jealous of the Conjuror, the thing is intelligible +enough, and one must feel a certain degree of sympathy with the +old-established firm that had spent such enormous sums, and made such +stupendous preparations, when a pretender like this could come into +competition with them, without any other properties than could be +carried conveniently about him. + +But let us be practical The Pope's Government demanded of Mr Home that +he should have no dealings with the Evil One during his stay at Rome. +Now, I ask, what should we say of the efficacy of our police system +if we were to hear that the Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard lived in +nightly terror of the pickpockets who frequented that quarter, and +came to Parliament with a petition to accord him some greater +security against their depredations? Would not the natural reply be an +exclamation of astonishment that he who could summon to his aid every +alphabetical blue-coat that ever handled a truncheon, should deem any +increased security necessary to his peace? And so, would I ask, of what +avail these crowds of cardinals--these regiments of monsignori--these +battalions of bishops, Arch and simple?--of what use all the incense +and these chanted litanies, these eternal processions, and these saintly +shin-bones borne in costly array--if one poor mortal, supposed to live +on visiting terms with the Evil One, can strike such terror into the +whole army led on by Infallibility? + +If I had been possessed of any peculiar dread of coming unexpectedly +on the Devil--as the old ladies of New York used to feel long ago +about suddenly meeting with the British army--I should certainly have +comforted myself by the thought that I could always go and sit down on +the steps of the Vatican. It would immediately have occurred to me, that +as Holyrood offers its sanctuary against the sheriff, the Quirinal would +be the sure retreat against Old Nick; and I have even pictured to myself +the rage of his disappointed malice as he saw me sheltering safely +beneath a protection he dared not invade. And now I am told to +relinquish all the blessed enjoyment of this immunity; that the Pope and +the Cardinals and Antonelli himself are not a whit better off than the +rest of us; that if Mr Home gets into Rome, there is nothing to prevent +his having the Devil at his tea-parties. What an ignoble confession +is this! Who will step forward any longer and contend that this costly +system is to be maintained, and all these saintly intercessors to be +kept on the most expensive of all pension-lists, if a poor creature like +Home can overthrow it all? + +Can any one conceive such a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet +and purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing +before Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents to cross +the Tiber? + +Why--I speak, of course, in the ignorance of a laic--but, I ask, why not +fumigate him and cleanse him? When I saw him last, the process would not +have been so supererogatory. Why not exorcise and defy him? Why not say, +Come, and bring your friend if you dare; you shall see how we will treat +you. Only try it It is what we have been asking for nigh two thousand +years. Let the great culprit step forward and plead to his indictment. + +I can fancy the Pope saying this--I can picture to myself the proud +attitude of the Pontiff declaring, "I have had enough of these small +devilries, like Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel--I am sick of Mazzini +and his petty followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at once; +if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to a compromise." +This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that +he should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not +surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and +actually feared the debating powers of "Mr Potter of the Strikes." + + + + +GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. + +Nothing shows what a practical people we are more than our establishment +of insurances against railroad accidents. The spirit of commercial +enterprise, by which a man charters himself for a railroad voyage with +an insured cargo of his bones, ligaments, cartilage, and adipose tissue, +abundantly proves that we are nature's own traders and shopkeepers. + +Any ordinary people less imbued with Liverpool and Manchester notions +would have bestirred themselves how to prevent, or at least lessen, +the number of those casualties. They would have set to work to see what +provisions could be adopted to give greater security to travel. We, on +the contrary are too business-like to waste time on this inquiry. We are +convinced that, let us build ships ever so strong, there will still +be shipwrecks. So we feel assured that a certain number of railway +accidents, as they are called, will continue to occur--be as broad gauge +as you will! We accept the situation, therefore, as the French say, and +insure; that is to say, we book a bet at very long odds--say, three to a +thousand--that we shall be rolled up, cut in two, flattened into a thin +sheeting, and ground into an impalpable powder, between Croydon +and Brighton. If we arrive safe, the assurance office pockets a few +shillings; if we win our wager, our executor receives a thousand pounds. + +It is about the grimmest kind of gambling ever man heard of; and yet +we see folk of the most unquestionable propriety--dignitaries of the +Church, judges, civil and uncivil servants of the Crown, and scores of +others, whom nothing would tempt into the Cursaal at Ems or Baden, as +coolly as possible playing this terrific game, and backing themselves +heavily for a dorsal paralysis, a depressed fracture of the cranium, or +at least a compound dislocation of the hip-joint. + +Now, if the Protestant Church entertained what the Romanists call +cases of conscience, I should like greatly to ask, Is this right? Is it +justifiable to make a contingent profit out of your cerebral vertebrae +or your popliteal space? + +We have long been derided and scoffed at for making connubialism +marketable, and putting a price on a wife's infidelity, but it strikes +me this is something worse; for what, after all, is a rib--a false rib, +too--compared with the whole bony skeleton? + +"Allah is Allah," said the Turkish admiral to Lady Hester Stanhope, "but +I have got two anchors astern," showing that, with all his fatalism, he +did not despise what are technically called human means. So the reverend +Archdeacon, going down for his sea-baths, might say, "I'm not quite sure +they'll carry me safely, but it shall not be all misfortune--I'll take +out some of it in money." + +The system, however, has its difficulties; for though it is a round +game, the stakes are apportioned with reference to the rank and +condition of the winner--as, for instance, the Solicitor-General's +collarbone is worth a shoemaker's whole body, and a Judge's patella is +of more value than a dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This +is a tremendous pull against the company, who not only give long, but +actually incalculable odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can +be crumpled up for two hundred pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in +the coupe cannot be even concussed under a thousand; while if the noble +Duke in the express carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may be +positively astounding. + +This I certainly call hard--very hard. When you book a bet at Newmarket +you never have to consider the rank of your opponent, save as regards +his solvency. He may be a peer--he is very probably a publican--it is +perfectly immaterial to you; but not so here. The company is positively +staking against the incommensurable. They have no means of knowing +whether that large broad-shouldered man yonder is or is not a royal +duke; and when the telegraph announces a collision, it may chance that +the news has declared what will send every shareholder into bankruptcy, +or only graze them without hurting anybody. + +We all know how a number of what are technically termed serious people +went to Exeter Hall to listen to the music of the 'Traviata,' what no +possible temptation would have induced them to hear within the walls +of a theatre. I will not question the propriety of a matter only to +be settled by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the +words--for the airs were sung--were the same, the hearers were not +improbably in the enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though +they had gone for it to the Queen's Theatre. Now, may not these railway +insurances be something of the same kind? May it not be a means by which +deans and canons and other broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little +gambling without "going in" for Blind Hooky or Roulette? Regard for +decorum would prevent their sojourning at Homburg or Wiesbaden. They +could not, of course, be seen "punting" at the play-table at Ems; but +here is a legitimate game which all may join in, and where, certainly, +the anxiety that is said to impart the chief ecstasy to the gamester's +passion rises to the very highest It is heads and tails for a smashing +stake, and ought to interest the most sluggish of mortals. + +What a useful addition, then, would it be for one's Bradshaw to have a +tabular view of the "odds" on the different lines, so that a speculative +individual, desiring to provide for his family, might know where to +address himself with best chance of an accident! One can imagine an +assurance company puffing its unparalleled advantages and unrivalled +opportunity, when four excursion trains were to start at five minutes' +intervals, and the prospect of a smash was little short of a certainty. +"Great attraction! the late rains have injured the chief portion of the +line, so that a disaster is confidently looked for every hour. Make your +game, gentlemen--make your game; nothing received after the bell rings." + + + + +THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. + +Anything more absurd than the late debate in the House on the best means +of suppressing intemperance it is very hard to imagine. First of all, +in the van, came the grievance to be redressed; and we had a statistical +statement of all the gallons of strong drink consumed--all the moneys +diverted from the legitimate uses of the family--all the debauchees +who rolled drunk through our streets, and all the offences directly +originating in this degrading vice. Now, what conceivable order of mind +could prompt a man to engage in such a laborious research? Who either +doubts the enormity of drunkenness or its frequency? It is a theme that +we hear of incessantly. The pulpit rings with it, the press proclaims +it, the judges declare it in all their charges, and a special class of +lecturers have converted it into a profession. None denied the existence +of the disease; what we craved was the cure. Some discrepancy of opinion +prevailed as to whether the vice was on the increase or the decrease. +Statistics were given, and, of course, statistics supported each +assertion. This, however, was a mere skirmish--the grand battle was, How +was drunkenness to be put down? + +Mr Lawson's plan was: If four-fifths of the ratepayers of any district +were agreed that no spirituous liquors should be sold there, that such +should become a law, and no licence for their sale should be issued. The +mover of this proposal, curiously enough, called this "bringing public +opinion to bear on the question." What muddle of intelligence could +imagine this to be an exercise of public opinion I cannot imagine. +Such, however, is the plan. Drunkenness is to be repressed by making +it impossible. Did it never occur to the honourable gentleman, that all +legislative enactments whatever work not by enforcing what is good, but +by punishing what is evil? No law that ever was made would render people +honest and true to their engagements; but we arrive at a result not very +dissimilar by making dishonesty penal. + +The Decalogue declares: "Thou shalt not commit a murder." Human law +pronounces what will come of it if you do. It is, doubtless, very +imperfect legislation, but there is no help for it. We accept such +cases, however, as the best defences we can find for our social +condition, never for a moment presuming to think that we are rendering a +vice impossible by attaching to it a penalty. + +Mr Lawson, however, says, There shall be no drunkenness, because there +shall be no liquor. Why not extend the principle--for it is a great +discovery--and declare that, wherever four-fifths of the ratepayers of +a town or borough are of opinion that ingratitude is a great offence to +morals and a stain to human nature, in that district where they reside +there shall be no benefits conferred, nor any act of kindly aid or +assistance rendered by one man to his neighbour? I have no doubt that, +by such legislation, you would put down ingratitude. We use acts in the +moral world pretty much as in the physical; and it is entirely by the +impossibility of committing the offence that this gentleman proposes +to prevent its occurrence. But, in the name of common sense, why do we +inveigh against monasteries and nunneries?--why are we so severe on a +system that substitutes restraint for reason, and instead of correction +supplies coercion? Surely this plan is based on exactly the same +principle. Would it, I ask, cure a man of lying--I mean the vice, not +the practice--to place him in a community where no party was permitted +to talk? + +The example of the higher classes was somewhat ostentatiously paraded in +the debate, and members vied with each other in declaring how often +they dined out without meeting a drunkard in the company. This is very +gratifying and reassurring; but I am not aware that anybody ascribed +the happy change to the paucity of the decanters, and the difficulty of +getting the bottle; or whether it was that four-fifths of the party +had declared an embargo on the sherry, and realised the old proverb by +elevating necessity to the rank of virtue. + +Let me ask, who ever imagined that the best way to render a soldier +brave in battle was to take care that he never saw an enemy, and only +frequented the society of Quakers? And yet this is precisely what +Mr Lawson suggests. If his system be true, what becomes of all moral +discipline and all self-restraint? It is not through my own convictions +that I am sober; it is through no sense of the degradation that pertains +to drunkenness, and the loss of social estimation that follows it, that +I am temperate. It is because four-fifths of the ratepayers declare that +I shall have no drink nearer than the next parish; and this reminds of +another weak point in the plan. + +The Americans, who understand something of the evils of drink, on the +principle that made Doctor Panloss a good man, because he knew what +wickedness was, lately passed a law in Congress forbidding the use of +fermented liquors on board all the ships of war. It was one of those +sweeping pieces of legislation that men enact when driven to do +something, they know not exactly what, by the enormity of some great +abuse. Now, I have taken considerable pains to inquire how the plan +operates, and what success has waited on it. From every officer that I +have questioned I have received the same exact testimony: so long as the +ships are at sea the men only grumble at the privation; but once they +touch port, and boats' crews are permitted to go ashore, drunkenness +breaks out with tenfold violence. For a while all real discipline is at +an end; parties are despatched to bring back defaulters, who themselves +get reeling drunk; petty officers are insulted, and scenes of violence +enacted that give the unhappy locality where they have landed the +aspect of a town taken by assault and given up to pillage. I am not now +describing altogether from hearsay; I have witnessed something of what I +speak. + +As drunkenness, when the ship was at sea, was the rarest of all events, +and the good conduct of the men when on shore was the great object to +be obtained, this system may be, so far as the navy is concerned, +pronounced a decided failure. Whatever may be said about the policy of +sowing a man's wild oats, nobody, so far as I know, ever hinted that the +crop should be perennial. + +Legislation can no more make men temperate than it can make them cleanly +or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would +make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a +crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to +this well-intentioned gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is +unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How +is it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the +great essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle +man now could no more be found than the Plesiosaurus. He belongs to a +past totally and essentially irrevocable. + +And by what has this happy change been effected? Surely not by +withdrawing temptation. Not only have we an infinitely wider choice in +fluids than our forefathers, but they are served and ministered with +appliances far more tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the +higher tone of society the revolution is owing. Men saw that drunkenness +was disgraceful: it rendered society disorderly and riotous; it +interfered with all real conversational pleasure; it led to unmannerly +excesses, and to quarrels. A higher cultivation repudiated all these +things; and even they who, so to say, "liked their wine" too well, were +slow to disparage themselves by an indulgence which good taste declared +to be ungentlemanlike. + +Is it completely impossible to introduce some such sentiment as this +into other orders of society? We see it certainly in some foreign +countries--why not in our own? Radical orators are incessantly telling +us of the mental powers and the intellectual cultivation of the +working-classes, and I am well-disposed to believe there is much truth +in what they say. Why not then adapt, to men so highly civilised, some +of those sentiments that sway the classes more favoured of fortune? The +French artisan would deem it a disgrace to be drunk--so the Italian; +even the German would only go as far as a sort of beery bemuddlement +that made him a more ideal representative of the Vaterland: why must the +Englishman, of necessity, be the inferior in civilisation to these? I am +not willing to believe the task of such a reformation hopeless, though I +am perfectly convinced that no greater folly could be committed than to +attempt it by an Act of Parliament. + +When legislation has led men to be agreeable in society, unassuming in +manners, and gentle in deportment, it may make them temperate in their +liquor, but not before. The thing cannot be done in committee, nor by +a vote of the House. It is only to be accomplished by the filtering +process, by which the good habits of a nation drop down and permeate the +strata beneath; so that, in course of time, the whole mass, leavened +by the same ingredients, becomes one as completely in sentiment as in +interest. "Four-fifths of the ratepayers" will not effect this. After +all, Mr Lawson is only a second-hand discoverer. His bill was a mere +plagiarism from beginning to end. The whole text of his argument was +said and sung by poor Curran, full fifty odd years ago:-- + + "My children, be chaste till you're tempted; + While sober, be wise and discreet; + And humble your bodies with fasting + Whenever you've nothing to eat." + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women +And Other Things In General, by Charles Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN *** + +***** This file should be named 22058.txt or 22058.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/5/22058/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General + Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 + +Author: Charles Lever + +Release Date: May 20, 2008 [EBook #22058] +Last Updated: September 4, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<h1> +CORNELIUS O’DOWD <br /> UPON MEN AND WOMEN <br /> AND OTHER THINGS IN +GENERAL +</h1> +<h2> +By Charles Lever +</h2> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<h5> +Originally Published In Blackwood’s Magazine +</h5> +<h4> +1864 +</h4> +<p> +<br /> <br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /> <br /> +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="toc"> +<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NOTICE. </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <big><b>CORNELIUS O’DOWD</b></big> </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> MYSELF. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF +SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> GARIBALDI’S WORSHIPPERS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> THE STRANGE MAN’S SORROW. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0010"> ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0012"> R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D’INDUSTRIE OF +OUR DAY. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0013"> GÀRIBÀLDI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0014"> A NEW INVESTMENT. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0015"> ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE DECLINE OF WHIST. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0017"> ONE OF OUR “TWO PUZZLES”. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0018"> A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0019"> A NEW HANSARD. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0020"> FOREIGN CLUBS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0021"> A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0022"> OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0023"> DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0024"> PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0025"> A GRUMBLE. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0026"> OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0027"> THE RULE NISI. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0028"> ON CLIMBING BOYS. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0029"> LINGUISTS </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0030"> THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0031"> GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0032"> THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. </a> +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +<br /> <br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +TO JOHN ANSTER, ESQ., LL.D. +</h2> +<h3> +My dear Anster, +</h3> +<p> +If you knew how often I have thought of you as I was writing this book,—if +you knew how there rose before my mind memories of long ago—of those +glorious evenings with all those fine spirits, to think of whom is a +triumph even with all its sadness,—and if you knew how I long to +meet once more the few soldiers who survive of that “old guard,”—you +would see how naturally I dedicate my volume to him who was the best of +us. Accept it, I beg you, as a token of recollection and regard from your +affectionate friend, +</p> +<p> +CORNELIUS O’DOWD. +</p> +<p> +Lago Maggiore, July 20,1864. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +NOTICE. +</h2> +<h3> +AMIABLE AND ACCOMPLISHED READER, +</h3> +<p> +As I have very little to say for myself that is not said in some of my +opening pages, there is no need that I should delay you on the threshold. +</p> +<p> +You will learn, if you take the trouble, by what course of events I came +to my present pursuit, converting myself into what a candid, but not +complimentary, friend has called “a diverting Vagabond.” + </p> +<p> +The fact was, I gave the world every reasonable opportunity of knowing +that they had a remarkable man amongst them, but, with a stupidity all +their own, they wouldn’t see it; so that when the solicitor who once gave +me a brief died—I believe it was a softening of the brain—I +burned my wig and retired from the profession. +</p> +<p> +Now, let people say what they may, it is by no means easy to invent a new +line of life; and even if you should, there are scores of people ready to +start up and seize on your discovery; and as I write these lines I am by +no means sure that to-morrow will not see some other Cornelius O’Dowd +inviting the public to a feast of wisdom and life-knowledge, with perhaps +a larger stock than my own of “things not generally known.” I will +disparage no man’s wares. There is, I feel assured, a market for us all. +My rivals, or my imitators, whichever you like to call them, may prove +superior to me; they maybe more ingenious, more various, more witty, or +more profound; but take my word for it, bland Header, there is always +something in the original tap, whether the liquor be Harvey sauce or L.L. +whisky, and such is mine. You are, in coming to me, frequenting the old +house; and if I could only descend to it, I could print you more +testimonials to success than Mr Morrison’s of the pills, or the other man +of cod-liver oil, but I scorn to give the names, imparted as they were in +secret gratitude. One only trick of the trade I will condescend to—it +is to assure you that you had need to beware of counterfeits, and that no +O’Dowderies are genuine except signed by me. +</p> +<p> +My heart is broke with requests for my autograph. Will a sympathising +public accept the above—which, of course, will be immediately +photographed. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h1> +CORNELIUS O’DOWD +</h1> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +MYSELF. +</h2> +<p> +Bland Reader,—If you ever look into the Irish papers—and I +hope you are not so exclusive regarding them as is Mr Cobden with the +‘Times’—you will see that, under the title, “Landed Estates Court, +County Mayo,” Judge Dobbs has just sold the town and lands of +Kilmuray-nabachlish, Ballaghy, and Gregnaslattery, the property of +Cornelius O’Dowd, Esq. of Dowd’s Folly, in the same county. +</p> +<p> +Now the above-recited lands, measuring seven hundred and fourteen acres, +two roods, and eleven perches, statute measure, were mine, and I am the +Cornelius O’Dowd, Esq., referred to in the same paragraph. +</p> +<p> +Though it is perfectly true that, what between mortgages, settlement +claims, and bonds, neither my father nor myself owned these lands any more +than we did the island of Jamaica, it was a great blow to me to be sold +out; for, somehow or other, one can live a long time in Ireland on +parchment—I mean on the mere documents of an estate that has long +since passed away; but if you come once to an open sale and Judge Dobbs, +there’s an end of you, and you’ll not get credit for a pair of shoes the +day after. +</p> +<p> +My present reason for addressing you does not require that I should go +into my family history, or mention more of myself than that I was called +to the Bar in ‘42; that I stood an unsuccessful election for Athlone; that +I served as a captain in the West Coast Rifles; that I married a young +lady of great personal attractions; and completed my misfortunes by taking +the chairmanship of the Vichnasehneshee silver mines, that very soon left +me with nothing but copper in my own pocket, and sent me to Judge Dobbs +and his Court on the Inns Quay. +</p> +<p> +Like the rest of my countrymen, I was always hoping the Government would +“do something” for me. I have not missed a levee for fourteen years, and I +have shown the calves of my legs to every viceroyalty since Lord +Clarendon’s day; but though they all joked and talked very pleasantly with +me, none said, “O’Dowd, we must do something for you;” and if it was to +rain commissionerships in lunacy, or prison inspectorships, I don’t +believe one would fall upon C. O’D. I never knew rightly how it was, but +though I was always liked at the Bar mess, and made much of on circuit, I +never got a brief. People were constantly saying to me, “Con, if you were +to do this, that, or t’other,” you’d make a hit; but it was always +conditional on my being somewhere, or doing something that I never had +attempted before. +</p> +<p> +It was clear, if I was the right man, I wasn’t in the right place; and +this was all the more provoking, because, let me do what I would, some one +was sure to exclaim, “Con, my boy, don’t try that; it is certainly not +your line.” “What a capital agent for a new assurance company you’d be!” + “What a success you’d have had on the stage! You’d have played Sir Lucius +better than any living actor. Why don’t you go on the boards? Why not +start a penny newspaper? Why not give readings?” I wonder why they didn’t +tell me to turn organist or a painter in oils. +</p> +<p> +“You’re always telling us how much you know of the world, Mr O’Dowd,” said +my wife; “I wish you could turn the knowledge to some account.” + </p> +<p> +This was scarcely generous, to say the least of it. +</p> +<p> +Mrs O’D. knew well that I was vain of the quality—that I regarded it +as a sort of specialty. In fact, deeming, with the poet, that the proper +study of mankind was man, I had devoted a larger share of my life to the +inquiry than quite consisted with professional advancement; and while +others pored over their Blackstone, I was “doing Baden;” and instead of +term reports and Crown cases, I was diverting myself in the Oberland or on +the Lago Maggiore. +</p> +<p> +“And with all your great knowledge of life,” continued she, “I don’t +exactly see what it has done for you.” + </p> +<p> +Now, Mrs O’Dowd being, as you may apprehend, a woman, I didn’t waste my +time in arguing with her—I didn’t crush her, as I might, by telling +her that the very highest and noblest of a man’s acquirements are, <i>ipso +facto</i>, the least marketable; and that the boasted excellence of all +classical education is in nothing so conspicuous as in the fact that Greek +and Latin cannot be converted into money as readily as vulgar fractions +and a bold handwriting. Being a woman, as I have observed, Mrs O’D. would +have read the argument backwards, and stood out for the rule-of-three +against Sophocles and “all his works.” I simply replied, with that dignity +which is natural to me, “I <i>am</i> proud of my knowledge of life; I do +recognise in myself the analyst of that strange mixture that makes up +human chemistry; but it has never occurred to me to advertise my discovery +for sale, like Holloway’s Pills or somebody’s cod-liver oil.” “Perhaps you +knew nobody would buy it,” cried she, and flounced out of the room, the +bang of the door being one of the “epigrams in action” wives are skilled +in. +</p> +<p> +Now, with respect to my knowledge of life, I have often compared myself to +those connoisseurs in art who, without a picture or an engraving of their +own, can roam through a gallery, taking the most intense pleasure in all +it contains, gazing with ecstasy at the Raffaeles, and lingering delighted +over the sunny landscapes of Claude. To me the world has, for years, +imparted a sense of much enjoyment. Human nature has been my gallery, with +all its variety, its breadth, its effect, its warm colouring, and its cold +tints. +</p> +<p> +It has been my pride to think that I can recognise every style and every +“handling,” and that no man could impose a copy upon me for an original. +“And can it be possible,” cried I aloud, “that while picture-dealers revel +in fortune—fellows whose traffic goes no higher than coloured +canvass—that I, the connoisseur of humanity, the moral toxicologist—I, +who read men as I read a French comedy—that I should be obliged to +deny myself the generous claret my doctor thinks essential to my system, +and that repose and change of scene he deems of more consequence to me +than mere physic?” + </p> +<p> +I do not—I will not—I cannot, believe it. No class of persons +could be less spared than pilots. Without their watchful skill the rich +argosy that has entered the chops of the Channel would never anchor in the +Pool. And are there no sand-banks, no sunk rocks, no hidden reefs, no +insidious shoals, in humanity? Are there no treacherous lee-shores, no +dangerous currents, no breakers? It is amidst these and such as these I +purpose to guide my fellow-men, not pretending for a moment to the +possession of any heaven-born instinct, or any inspired insight into +Nature. No; I have toiled and laboured in the cause. The experience that I +mean to offer for sale I have myself bought, occasionally far more dearly +than I intend to dispose of it. <i>Haud ignarus mali</i>; I am willing to +tell where I have been shipwrecked, and who stole my clothes. “Don’t tell +me of your successes,” said a great physician to his colleague, “tell me +of your blunders; tell me of the people you’ve killed.” I am ready to do +this, figuratively of course, for they were all ladies; and more, I will +make no attempt to screen myself from the ridicule that may attach to an +absurd situation, nor conceal those experiences which may subject me to +laughter. +</p> +<p> +You may deem me boastful if I have to set forth my qualifications; but +what can I do? It is only when I have opened my pack and displayed my +wares that you may feel tempted to buy. I am driven, then, to tell you +that I know everybody that is worth knowing in Europe, and some two or +three in America; that I have been everywhere—eaten of everything—seen +everything. There’s not a railway guard from Norway to Naples doesn’t grin +a recognition to me; not a waiter from the Trois Frères to the Wilde Mann +doesn’t trail his napkin to earth as he sees me. Ministers speak up when I +stroll into the Chamber, and <i>prima donnas</i> soar above the orchestra, +and warble in ecstasy as I enter the pit. +</p> +<p> +I don’t like—I declare to you I do not like—saying these +things; it smacks of vanity. Now for my plan. I purpose to put these my +gifts at your disposal The year before us will doubtless be an eventful +one. What between Danes, Poles, and Italians, there must be a row +somewhere. The French are very eager for war; and the Austrians, as Paddy +says, “are blue-moulded for want of a beatin’.” There will be grand +“battle-pieces” to paint; but, better than these, portraits, groups, +“tableaux de genre”—Teniers bits, too, at the porch of an ale-house, +and warm little interiors, in the style of Mieris. I shall be instructive +at times—very instructive; and whenever I am very nice and dull, be +assured that I’m “full of information, and know my subject thoroughly.” + </p> +<p> +As “your own correspondent,” I am free to go wherever I please. I have +left Mrs O’D. in Ireland, and I revel in an Arcadian liberty. These are +all my credentials; and if with their aid I can furnish you any amusement +as to the goings-on of the world and its wife, or the doings of that +amiable couple in politics, books, theatres, or socialities, I seek for +nothing more congenial to my taste, nor more adapted to my nature, as a +bashful Irishman. +</p> +<p> +If I will not often obtrude, I will not altogether avoid, my personal +experiences; for there is this to be said, that no testimony is worth much +unless we know something of the temper, the tastes, and the character of +the witness. We have all heard, for instance, of the gentleman who +couldn’t laugh at Munden’s drolleries on the stage for thinking of a debt +of ten pounds that the actor owed him: and this same spirit has a great +deal to do—far more than we like to own—with our estimate of +foreign countries. It is so hard to speak well of the climate where we had +that horrible rheumatism, or laud the honesty of a people when we think of +that rascally scoundrel of the Hotel d’Odessa. For these reasons I mean to +come into the witness-box occasionally, and give you frankly, not merely +my opinions, but the way they were come by. I don’t affect to be superior +to prejudices; I have as many of these as a porcupine has bristles. +There’s all the egotism I mean to inflict on you, unless it comes under +the guise of an incident—“a circumstance which really occurred to +the author”—and now, <i>en route</i>. +</p> +<p> +I wonder am I right in thinking that the present race of travelling +English know less about the Continent and foreigners generally than their +predecessors of, say, five-and-twenty years ago. Railroads and rapid +travelling might be one cause; another is, that English is now more +generally spoken by all foreigners than formerly; and it may be taken as a +maxim, that nothing was ever asked or answered in broken phraseology that +was worth the hearing. People with a limited knowledge of a strange +language do not say what they <i>wish</i>, but what they <i>can</i>; and +there is no name for the helplessness of him who is tied up in his +preter-pluperfect tense. Now we English are not linguists; even our +diplomatists are remarkable for their little proficiency in French. I’m +not sure that we don’t benefit by this in the long-run. “Reden ist silber, +aber Schweigen ist gold”—“Speech is silver, but silence is gold,” + says the German adage; and what a deal of wisdom have I seen attributed to +a man who was posed by his declensions into a listener! One of the only +countrymen of my own who has made a great career lately in public life is +not a little indebted to deafness for it. He was so unlike those rash, +impetuous, impatient Irish, who <i>would</i> interrupt—he listened, +or seemed to listen, and he even smiled at the sarcasms that he did not +hear. +</p> +<p> +Listening, if we did but know it, sits more gracefully on us than speech, +when that speech involves the denial of genders, and the utter confusion +of all cases and tenses. +</p> +<p> +Next to holding their tongues, there’s another thing I wish you English +would do abroad, which is, to dress like sane and responsible people. Men +are simply absurd; but the women, with their ill-behaved hoops and short +petticoats, are positively indecent; but the greatest of all their +travelling offences is the proneness to form acquaintance at <i>tables-d’hôte</i>. +</p> +<p> +It is, first of all, a rank indiscretion for any but men to dine at these +places. They are almost, as a rule, the resort of all that is disreputable +in both sexes. You are sure to eat badly, and in the very worst of +company. My warning is, however, meant for my countrywomen only: men can, +or at least ought, to take care of themselves. As for myself, don’t be +shocked; but I do like doubtful company—that is, I am immensely +interested by all that class of people which the world calls adventurers, +whether the same be railroad speculators, fortune-hunters, discoverers of +inexhaustible mines, or Garibaldians. Your respectable man, with a +pocket-book well stored with his circular notes, and his passport in +order, is as uninteresting as a “Treckshuyt” on a Dutch canal; but your +“martyr to circumstance” is like a smart felucca in a strong Levanter; and +you can watch his course—how he shakes out his reefs or shortens +sail—how he flaunts out his bunting, or hides his colours—with +an unflagging interest I have often thought what a deal of cleverness—what +stores of practical ability—were lost to the world in these +out-at-elbow fellows, who speak every language fluently, play every game +well, sing pleasingly, dance, ride, row, and shoot, especially with the +pistol, to perfection. There they are, with a mass of qualities that win +success! and, what often is harder, win goodwill in life! There they are, +by some unhappy twist in their natures, preferring the precarious +existence of the race-course or the billiard-table; while others, with +about a tithe of their talents, are high in place and power. I met one of +these men to-day, and a strong specimen of the class, well dressed, well +whiskered, very quiet in manner, almost subdued in tone, but with a slight +restlessness in his eye that was very significant. We found ourselves at +table, over our coffee, when the others had left, and fell into +conversation. He declined my offered cigar with much courtesy, preferring +to smoke little cigarettes of his own making; and really the manufacture +was very adroit, and, in its way, a study of the maker’s habits. We talked +over the usual topics—the bad dinner we had just eaten, the +strange-looking company, the discomfort of the hotel generally, and +suchlike. +</p> +<p> +“Have we not met before?” asked he, after a pause. “If I don’t mistake, we +dined together aboard of Leslie’s yacht, the Fawn.” + </p> +<p> +I shook my head. “Only knew Sir Francis Leslie by name; never saw the +Fawn.” + </p> +<p> +The shot failed, but there was no recoil in his gun, and he merely bowed a +half apology. +</p> +<p> +“A yacht is a mistake,” added he, after another interval. “One is obliged +to take, not the men one wants, but the fellows who can bear the sea. +Leslie, for instance, had such a set that I left him at Messina. Strange +enough, they took us for pirates there.” + </p> +<p> +“For pirates!” + </p> +<p> +“Yes. There were three fishing-boats—what they call <i>Bilancelle</i>—some +fifteen or sixteen miles out at sea, and when they saw us coming along +with all canvass set, they hauled up their nets and ran with all speed for +shore. Rather absurd, wasn’t it? but, as I told Leslie about his friends, +‘the blunder wasn’t so great after all; there was only a vowel between +Raffs and Riffs.’” + </p> +<p> +The disparagement of “questionable people” is such an old device of +adventurers, that I was really surprised such a master of his art as my +present friend would condescend to it. It belonged altogether to an +inferior practitioner; and, indeed, he quickly saw the effect it had +produced upon me, as he said, “Not that I care a straw for the fellows I +associate with; my theory is, a gentleman can know any one.” + </p> +<p> +Richard was himself again as he uttered this speech, lying well back in +his chair, and sending a thin cloud of incense from the angle of his +mouth. +</p> +<p> +“What snobs they were in Brummel’s day, for instance, always asking if +this or that man was fit to be known! Why, sir, it was the very fellows +they tabooed were the cream of the set; ‘it was the cards they threw out +were the trumps.’” + </p> +<p> +The illustration came so pat that he smiled as he perceived by a twinkle +of my eye that I appreciated it. +</p> +<p> +“My father,” continued he, “knew Brummel well, and he told me that his +grand defect was a want of personal courage—the very quality, of all +others, his career required. His impertinences always broke down when +brought to this test. I remember an instance he mentioned. +</p> +<p> +“Amongst the company that frequented Carlton House was a certain old +Admiral P———, whom the Prince was fond of inviting, +though he did not possess a single agreeable quality, or any one convivial +gift, except a great power of drinking the very strongest port without its +producing the slightest show of effect upon him. +</p> +<p> +“One night Brummel, evidently bent on testing the old sailor’s head, +seated himself next him, making it his business to pass the decanters as +briskly as he could. The admiral asked nothing better; filled and drank +bumpers. Not content with this legitimate test, Brummel watched his +opportunity when the admiral’s head was turned, and filled his glass up to +the brim. Four or five times was the trick repeated, and with success; +when at last the admiral, turning quickly around, caught him in the very +act, with the decanter still in his hand. Fixing his eyes upon him with +the fierceness of a tiger, the old man said, ‘Drink it, sir—drink +it!’ and so terrified was Brummel by the manner and the look that he +raised the glass to his lips and drained it, while all at the table were +convulsed with laughter.” + </p> +<p> +The Brummel school—that is, the primrose-glove adventurers—were +a very different order of men from the present-day fellows, who take a +turn in Circassia or China, or a campaign with Garibaldi; and who, with +all their defects, are men of mettle and pluck and daring. Of these latter +I found my new acquaintance to be one. +</p> +<p> +He sketched off the early part of the “expedition” graphically enough for +me, showing the disorder and indiscipline natural to a force where every +nationality of Europe was represented, and not by its most favourable +types. +</p> +<p> +“I had an Irish servant,” said he, “whose blunders would fill a volume. +His prevailing impression, perhaps not ill-founded on the whole, was, that +we all had come out for pillage; and while a certain reserve withheld most +of us from avowing this fact, he spoke of it openly and freely, +expatiating admiringly on Captain This and Major That, who had done a fine +stroke of work in such a store, or such another country-house. As for his +blunders, they never ceased. I was myself the victim of an absurd one. On +the march from Melazzo I got a severe strain in the chest by my horse +falling and rolling over me. No bone was broken, but I was much bruised, +and a considerable extravasation of blood took place under the skin. Of +course I could not move, and I was provided with a sort of litter, and +slung between two mules. The doctor prescribed a strong dose of laudanum, +which set me to sleep, and despatched Peter back to Melazzo with an order +for a certain ointment, which he was to bring without delay, as the case +was imminent; this was impressed upon him, as the fellow was much given to +wandering off, when sent of a message, after adventures of his own. +</p> +<p> +“Fully convinced that I was in danger, away went Peter, very sad about me, +but even more distressed lest he should forget what he was sent for. He +kept repeating the words over and over as he went, till they became by +mere repetition something perfectly incomprehensible, so that when he +reached Melazzo nobody could make head or tail of his message. Group after +group gathered about and interrogated him, and at last, by means of +pantomime, discovered that his master was very ill. Signs were made to +inquire if bleeding was required, or if it was a case for amputation, but +he still shook his head in negative. ‘Is he dying?’ asked one, making a +gesture to indicate lying down. Peter assented. ‘Oh, then it is the <i>unzione +estrema</i> he wants!’ ‘That’s it,’ cried Peter, joyfully—‘unzione +it is.’ Two priests were speedily found and despatched; and I awoke out of +a sound sleep under a tree to see three lighted candles on each side of +me, and two priests in full vestments standing at my feet and gabbling +away in a droning sort of voice, while Peter blubbered and wrung his hands +unceasingly. A jolly burst of laughter from me soon dispelled the whole +illusion, and Peter had to hide himself for shame for a week after.” + </p> +<p> +“What became of the fellow—was he killed in the campaign?” + </p> +<p> +“Killed! nothing of the kind; he rose to be an officer, served on Nullo’s +staff, and is at this very hour in Poland, and, if I mistake not, a +major.” + </p> +<p> +“Men of this stamp make occasionally great careers,” said I, carelessly. +</p> +<p> +“No, sir,” replied he, very gravely. “To do anything really brilliant, the +adventurer must have been a gentleman at one time or other: the common +fellow stops short at petty larcenies; the man of good blood always goes +in for the mint.” + </p> +<p> +“There was, then,” asked I, “a good deal of what the Yankees call +‘pocketing’ in that campaign of Garibaldi’s?” + </p> +<p> +“Less than one might suppose. Have you not occasionally seen men at a +dinner-party pass this and refuse that, waiting for the haunch, or the +pheasant, or the blackcock that they are certain is coming, when all of a +sudden the jellies and ices make their appearance, and the curtain falls? +So it was with many of us; we were all waiting for Rome, and licking our +lips for the Vatican and the Cardinals’ palaces, when in came the +Piedmontese and finished the entertainment. If I meet you here to-morrow, +I can tell you more about this;” and so saying he arose, gave me an easy +nod, and strolled away. +</p> +<p> +“Who is that most agreeable gentleman who took his coffee with me?” asked +I of the waiter as I entered the <i>salle</i>. +</p> +<p> +“It’s the Generale Inglese, who served with Garibaldi.” + </p> +<p> +“And his name?” + </p> +<p> +“Ah, <i>per bacco!</i> I never heard his name—Garibaldi calls him +Giorgio, and the ladies who call here to take him out to drive now and +then always say Giorgino—not that he’s so very small, for all that.” + </p> +<p> +My Garibaldian friend failed in his appointment with me this morning. We +were to have gone together to a gallery, or a collection of ancient +armour, or something of this sort, but he probably saw, as your clever +adventurer <i>will</i> see, with half an eye, that I could be no use to +him—that I was a wayfarer like himself on life’s highroad; and +prudently turned round on his side and went to sleep again. +</p> +<p> +There is no quality so distinctive in this sort of man or woman—for +adventurer has its feminine—as the rapid intuition with which he +seizes on all available people, and throws aside all the unprofitable +ones. A money-changer detecting a light napoleon is nothing to it. What +are the traits by which they guide their judgment—what the tests by +which they try humanity, I do not know, but that they do read a stranger +at first sight is indisputable. That he found out Cornelius O’Dowd wasn’t +a member of the British Cabinet, or a junior partner in Baring’s, was, you +may sneeringly conjecture, no remarkable evidence of acuteness. But why +should he discover the fact—fact it is—that he’d never be one +penny the richer by knowing me, and that intercourse with me was about as +profitable as playing a match at billiards “for the table”? +</p> +<p> +Say what people will against roguery and cheating, rail as they may at the +rapacity and rascality one meets with, I declare and protest, after a good +deal of experience, that the world is a very poor world to him who is not +the mark of some roguery! When you are too poor to be cheated, you are too +insignificant to be cherished; and the man that is not worth humbugging +isn’t very far from bankruptcy. +</p> +<p> +It gave me a sort of shock, therefore, when I saw that my friend took this +view of me, and I strolled down moodily enough to the Chamber of Deputies. +Turin is a dreary city for a lounger; even a resident finds that he must +serve a seven years’ apprenticeship before he gets any footing in its +stiff ungenial society—for of all Italians, nothing socially is less +graceful than a Piedmontese. They have none of the courteous civility, +none of the urbane gentleness of the peninsular Italians. They are cold, +reserved, proud, and eminently awkward; not the less so, perhaps, that +their habitual tongue is the very vilest jargon that ever disfigured a +human mouth. Of course this is an efficient barrier against intercourse +with strangers; and though French is spoken in society, it bears about the +same relation to that language at Paris, as what is called pigeon-English +at Hong-Kong does to the tongue in use in Belgravia. +</p> +<p> +When I reached the Palazzo Carignan, as the Chamber is called, the <i>séance</i> +was nearly over, and a scene of considerable uproar prevailed. There had +been a somewhat sharp altercation between General Bixio and the “Left,” + and M. Mordini had repeatedly appealed to the President to make the +General recall some offensive epithets he had bestowed on the “party of +movement.” There were the usual cries and gesticulations, the shouts of +derision, the gestures of menace; and, above all, the tinkle-tinkle of the +Presidents bell, which was no more minded than the summons for a waiter in +an Irish inn; and on they went in this hopeless way, till some one, I +don’t know why, cried out, “That’s enough—we are satisfied;” by +which it seemed that somebody had apologised, but for what, or how, or to +whom, I have not the very vaguest conception. +</p> +<p> +With all their depreciation of France, the Italians are the most +persistent imitators of Frenchmen, and the Chamber was exactly a copy of +the French Chamber in the old Louis Philippe days—all violence, +noise, sensational intensity, and excitement. +</p> +<p> +I have often heard public speakers mention the difficulty of adjusting the +voice to the size of a room in which they found themselves for the first +time, and the remark occurred to me as figuratively displaying one of the +difficulties of Italian public men. The speakers in reality never clearly +knew how far their words were to carry—whether they spoke to the +Chamber or to the Country. +</p> +<p> +Is there or is there not a public opinion in Italy? Can the public speaker +direct his words over the heads of his immediate surrounders to countless +thousands beyond them? If he cannot, Parliament is but a debating-club, +with the disadvantage of not being able to select the subjects for +discussion. +</p> +<p> +The glow of patriotism is never rightly warm, nor is the metal of party +truly malleable, without the strong blast of a public opinion. +</p> +<p> +The Turin Chamber has no echo in the country; and, so far as I see, the +Italians are far more eager to learn what is said in the French Parliament +than in their own. +</p> +<p> +I remember an old waiter at the Hibernian Hotel in Dublin, who got a prize +in the lottery and retired into private life, but who never could hear a +bell ring without crying out, “Coming, sir.” The Italians remind me +greatly of him: they have had such a terrible time of flunkeyism, that +they start at every summons, no matter what hand be on the bell-rope. +</p> +<p> +To be sure the French did bully them awfully in the last war. Never was an +alliance more dearly paid for. We ourselves are not a very compliant or +conciliating race, but we can remember what it cost us to submit to French +insolence and pretension in the Crimea; and yet we did submit to it, not +always with a good grace, but in some fashion or other. +</p> +<p> +Here comes my Garibaldino again, and with a proposal to go down to Genoa +and look at the Italian fleet. I don’t suppose that either of us know much +of the subject; and indeed I feel, in my ignorance, that I might be a +senior Lord of the Admiralty—but that is only another reason for the +inquiry. “One is nothing,” says Mr Puff, “if he ain’t critical” So Heaven +help the Italian navy under the conjoint commentaries of myself and my +friend! Meanwhile, and before we start, one word more of Turin. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A FRIEND OF GIOBERTS: BEING A REMINISCENCE OF SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. +</h2> +<p> +Here I am at the “Feder” in Turin—as dirty a hotel, be it said +passingly, as you’ll find out of Ireland, and seventeen long years it is +since I saw it first. Italy has changed a good deal in the meanwhile—changed +rulers, landmarks, systems, and ideas; not so my old acquaintance, the +Feder! There’s the dirty waiter flourishing his dirtier napkin; and +there’s the long low-ceilinged <i>table-d’hôte</i> room, stuffy and smoky, +and suffocating as ever; and there are the little grinning coteries of +threes and fours round small tables soaking their rolls in chocolate, and +puffing their “Cavours,” with faces as innocent of soap as they were +before the war of the liberation. After all, perhaps, I’d have no +objection if some friend would cry out, “Why, Con, my boy, you don’t look +a day older than when I saw you here in ‘46, I think! I protest you have +not changed in the least. What <i>elixir vitæ</i> have you swallowed, old +fellow? Not a wrinkle, nor a grey hair,” and so on. And yet seventeen +years taken out of the working part of a man’s life—that period that +corresponds with the interval between after breakfast, we’ll say, and an +hour before dinner—makes a great gap in existence; for I did very +little as a boy, being not an early riser, perhaps, and now, in the +evening of my days, I have got a theory that a man ought to dine early and +never work after it. Though I’m half ashamed, on so short an acquaintance +with my reader, to mention a personal incident, I can scarcely avoid—indeed +I cannot avoid—relating a circumstance connected with my first visit +to the “Hotel Feder.” + </p> +<p> +I was newly married when I came abroad for a short wedding-tour. The world +at that time required new-married people to lay in a small stock of +Continental notions, to assist their connubiality and enable them to wear +the yoke with the graceful ease of foreigners; and so Mrs O’D. and I +started with one heart, one passport, and—what’s not so pleasant—one +hundred pounds, to comply with this ordinance. Of course, once over the +border—once in France—it was enough. So we took up our abode +in a very unpretending little hotel of Boulogne-sur-Mer called “La Cour de +Madrid,” where we boarded for the moderate sum of eleven francs fifty +centimes per diem—the odd fifty being saved by my wife not taking +the post-prandial cup of coffee and rum. +</p> +<p> +There was not much to see at Boulogne, and we soon saw it. For a week or +so Mrs O’D. used to go out muffled like one of the Sultan’s five hundred +wives, protesting that she’d surely be recognised; but she grew out of the +delusion at last, and discovered that our residence at the Cour de Madrid +as effectually screened us from all remark or all inquiry as if we had +taken up our abode in the Catacombs. +</p> +<p> +Now when one has got a large stock of any commodity on hand—I don’t +care what it is—there’s nothing so provoking as not to find a +market. Mrs O’D.‘s investment was bashfulness. She was determined to be +the most timid, startled, modest, and blushing creature that ever wore +orange-flowers; and yet there was not a man, woman, or child in the whole +town that cared to know whether the act for which she left England was a +matrimony or a murder. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you hate this place, Cornelius?”—she never called me Con in +the honeymoon. “Isn’t it the dullest, dreariest hole you have ever been +in?” + </p> +<p> +“Not with you.” + </p> +<p> +“Then don’t yawn when you say so. I abhor it. It’s dirty, it’s vulgar, +it’s dear.” + </p> +<p> +“No, no. It ain’t dear, my love; don’t say, dear.” + </p> +<p> +“Billiards perhaps, and filthy cigars, and that greenish bitter—anisette, +I think they call it—are cheap enough, perhaps; but these are all +luxuries I can’t share in.” + </p> +<p> +Here was the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that presaged the first +connubial hurricane. A married friend—one of much experience and +long-suffering—had warned me of this, saying, “Don’t fancy you’ll +escape, old fellow; but do the way the Ministry do about Turkey—put +the evil day off; diplomatise, promise, cajole, threaten a bit if needs +be, but postpone;” and, strong with these precepts, I negotiated, as the +phrase is, and, with a dash of reckless liberality that I tremble at now +as I record it, I said, “You’ve only to say where—nothing but where +to, and I’ll take you—up the Rhine, down the Danube, Egypt, the +Cataracts———” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t want to go so far,” said she, dryly. “Italy will do.” + </p> +<p> +This was a stunner. I hoped the impossible would have stopped her, but she +caught at the practicable, and foiled me. +</p> +<p> +“There’s only one objection,” said I, musing. +</p> +<p> +“And what may that be? Not money, I hope.” + </p> +<p> +“Heaven forbid—no. It’s the language. We get on here tolerably well, +for the waiter speaks broken English; but in Italy, dearest, English is +unknown.” + </p> +<p> +“Let us learn Italian, then. My aunt Groves said I had a remarkable talent +for languages.” + </p> +<p> +I groaned inwardly at this, for the same aunt Groves had vouched for a sum +of seventeen hundred and odd pounds as her niece’s fortune, but which was +so beautifully “tied up,” as they called it, that neither Chancellor nor +Master were ever equal to the task of untying it. +</p> +<p> +“Of course, dearest, let us learn Italian;” and I thought how I’d crush a +junior counsel some day with a smashing bit of Dante. +</p> +<p> +We started that same night—travelled on day after day—crossed +Mont Cenis in a snow-storm, and reached the Feder as wayworn and +wretched-looking a pair as ever travelled on an errand of bliss and +beatitude. +</p> +<p> +“In for a penny” is very Irish philosophy, but I can’t help that; so I +wrote to my brother Peter to sell out another hundred for me out of the +“Threes,” saying “dear Paulina’s health required a little change to a +milder climate” (it was snowing when I wrote, and the thermometer over the +chimneypiece at 9° Reaumur, with windows that wouldn’t shut, and a marble +floor without carpet)—“that the balmy air of Italy” (my teeth +chattered as I set it down) “would soon restore her; and indeed already +she seemed to feel the change.” That she did, for she was crouching over a +pan of charcoal ashes, with a railroad wrapper over her shoulders. +</p> +<p> +It’s no use going over what is in every one’s experience on first coming +south of the Alps—the daily, hourly difficulty of not believing that +you have taken a wrong road and got into Siberia; and strangest of all it +is to see how little the natives think of it. I declare I often thought +soap must be a great refrigerant, and I wish some chemist would inquire +into the matter. +</p> +<p> +“Are we ever to begin this blessed language?” said Mrs O’D. to me, after +four days of close arrest—snow still falling and the thermometer +going daily down, down, lower and lower. Now I had made inquiries the day +before from the landlord, and learned that he knew of a most competent +person, not exactly a regular teacher who would insist upon our going to +work in school fashion, but a man of sense and a gentleman—indeed, a +person of rank and title, with whom the world had gone somewhat badly, and +who was at that very moment suffering for his political opinions, far in +advance, as they were, of those of his age. +</p> +<p> +“He’s a friend of Gioberti,” whispered the landlord in my ear, while his +features became animated with the most intense significance. Now, I had +never so much as heard of Gioberti, but I felt it would be a deep disgrace +to confess it, and so I only exclaimed, with an air of half-incredulity, +“Indeed!” + </p> +<p> +“As true as I’m here,” replied he. “He usually drops in about noon to read +the ‘Opinione,’ and, if you permit, I’ll send him up to you. His name is +Count Annibale Castrocaro.” + </p> +<p> +I hastened forthwith to Mrs O’D., to apprise her of the honour that +awaited us; repeating, a little <i>in extenso</i>, all that the host had +said, and finishing with the stunning announcement, “and a friend of +Gio-berti.” Mrs O’Dowd never flinched under the shock, and, too proud to +own her ignorance, she pertly remarked, “I don’t think the more of him for +that.” + </p> +<p> +I felt that she had beat me, and I sat down abashed and humiliated. +Meanwhile Mrs O’D. retired to make some change of dress; but, reappearing +after a while in her smartest morning toilette, and a very coquettish +little cap, with cherry-coloured ribbons, I saw what the word Count had +done at once. +</p> +<p> +Just as the clock struck twelve, the waiter flung wide the double doors of +our room, and announced, as pompously as though for royalty, “II Signor +Conte di Castrocaro,” and there entered a tall man slightly stooping in +the shoulders, with a profusion of the very blackest hair on his neck and +shoulders, his age anything from thirty-five to forty-eight, and his dress +a shabby blue surtout, buttoned to the throat and reaching below the +knees. He bowed and slid, and bowed again, till he came opposite where my +wife sat, and then, with rather a dramatic sort of grace, he lifted her +hand to his lips and kissed it. She reddened a little, but I saw she +wasn’t displeased with the air of homage that accompanied the ceremony, +and she begged him to be seated. +</p> +<p> +I own I was disappointed with the Count, his hair was so greasy, and his +hands so dirty, and his general get-up so uncared for; but Mrs O’D. talked +away with him very pleasantly, and he replied in his own broken English, +making little grimaces and smiles and gestures, and some very tender +glances, do duty where his parts of speech failed him. In fact, I watched +him as a sort of psychological phenomenon, and I arrived at the conclusion +that this friend of Gioberti’s was a very clever artist. +</p> +<p> +All was speedily settled for the lessons—hour, terms, and mode of +instruction. It was to be entirely conversational, with a little +theme-writing, no getting by heart, no irregular verbs, no declensions, no +genders. I did beg hard for a little grammar, but he wouldn’t hear of it. +It was against his “system,” and so I gave in. +</p> +<p> +We began the next day, but the Count ignored me altogether, directing +almost all his attentions to Mrs O’D.; and as I had already some small +knowledge of the elementary part of the language, I was just as well +pleased that she should come up, as it were, to my level. From this cause +I often walked off before the lesson was over, and sometimes, indeed, I +skulked it altogether, finding the system, as well as Gioberti’s friend, +to be an unconscionable bore. Mrs O’D., on the contrary, displayed an +industry I never believed her to possess, and would pass whole evenings +over her exercises, which often covered several sheets of letter-paper. +</p> +<p> +We had now been about five weeks in Turin, when my brother wrote to +request I would come back as speedily as I could, that a case in which I +held a brief was high in the cause-list, and would be tried very early in +the session. I own I was not sorry at the recall. I detested the dreary +life I was leading. I hated Turin and its bad feeding and bad theatres, +its rough wines and its rougher inhabitants. +</p> +<p> +“Did you tell the Count we are off on Saturday?” asked I of Mrs O’D. +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” said she, dryly. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose he’s inconsolable,” said I, with a sneer. +</p> +<p> +“He’s very sorry we’re going, if you mean that, Mr O’Dowd; and so am I +too.” + </p> +<p> +“Well, so am not I; and you may call me a Dutchman if you catch me here +again.” + </p> +<p> +“The Count hopes you will permit him to see you. He asked this morning +whether he might call on you about four o’clock.” + </p> +<p> +“Yes, I’ll see him with sincere pleasure for once,” I cried; “since it is +to say good-bye to him.” + </p> +<p> +I was in my dressing-room, packing up for the journey, when the Count was +announced and shown in. “Excuse me, Count,” said I, “for receiving you so +informally, but I have a hasty summons to call me back to England, and no +time to spare.” + </p> +<p> +“I will, notwithstanding, ask you for some of that time, all precious as +it is,” said he in French, and with a serious gravity that I had never +observed in him before. +</p> +<p> +“Well, sir,” said I, stiffly; “I am at your orders.” + </p> +<p> +It is now seventeen long years since that interview, and I am free to own +that I have not even yet attained to sufficient calm and temper to relate +what took place. I can but give the substance of our conversation. It is +not over-pleasant to dwell on, but it was to this purport:—The Count +had come to inform me that, without any intention or endeavour on his +part, he had gained Mrs O’Dowd’s affections and won her heart! Yes, +much-valued reader, he made this declaration to me, sitting opposite to me +at the fire, as coolly and unconcernedly as if he was apologising for +having carried off my umbrella by mistake. It is true, he was most +circumstantial in showing that all the ardour was on one side, and that +he, throughout the whole adventure, conducted himself as became a Gran’ +Galantuomo, and the friend of Gioberti, whatever that might mean. +</p> +<p> +My amazement—I might almost call it my stupefaction—at the +unparalleled impudence of the man, so overcame me, that I listened to him +without an effort at interruption. +</p> +<p> +“I have come to you, therefore, to-day,” said he, “to give up her +letters.” + </p> +<p> +“Her letters!” exclaimed I; “and she has written to you!” + </p> +<p> +“Twenty-three times in all,” said he, calmly, as he drew a large black +pocket-book from his breast, and took out a considerable roll of papers. +“The earlier ones are less interesting,” said he, turning them over. “It +is about here, No. 14, that they begin to develop feeling. You see she +commences to call me ‘Caro Animale’—she meant to say Annibale, but, +poor dear! she mistook. No. 15 is stronger—‘Animale Mio’—the +same error; and here, in No. 17, she begins, ‘Diletto del mio cuore, +quando non ti vedo, non ti sento, il cielo stesso, non mi sorride piu. Il +mio Tiranno’—that was <i>you</i>.” + </p> +<p> +I caught hold of the poker with a convulsive grasp, but quick as thought +he bounded back behind the table, and drew out a pistol, and cocked it. I +saw that Gioberti’s friend had his wits about him, and resumed the +conversation by remarking that the documents he had shown me were not in +my wife’s handwriting. +</p> +<p> +“Very true,” said he; “these, as you will perceive by the official stamp, +are sworn copies, duly attested at the Prefettura—the originals are +safe.” + </p> +<p> +“And with what object,” asked I, gasping—“safe for what?” + </p> +<p> +“For you, lllustrissimo,” said he, bowing, “when you pay me two thousand +francs for them.” + </p> +<p> +“I’ll knock your brains out first,” said I, with another clutch at the +poker, but the muzzle of the pistol was now directly in front of me. +</p> +<p> +“I am moderate in my demands, signor,” said he, quietly; “there are men in +my position would ask you twenty thousand; but I am a galantuomo——” + </p> +<p> +“And the friend of Gioberti,” added I, with a sneer. +</p> +<p> +“Precisely so,” said he, bowing with much grace. +</p> +<p> +I will not weary you, dear reader, with my struggles—conflicts that +almost cost me a seizure on the brain—but hasten to the result. I +beat down the noble Count’s demand to one-half and for a thousand francs I +possessed myself of the fatal originals, written unquestionably and +indisputably by my wife’s hand; and then, giving the Count a final piece +of advice, never to let me see more of him, I hurried off to Mrs O’Dowd. +</p> +<p> +She was out paying some bills, and only arrived a few minutes before +dinner-hour. +</p> +<p> +“I want you, madam, for a moment here,” said I, with something of Othello, +in the last act, in my voice and demeanour. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose I can take off my bonnet and shawl first, Mr O’Dowd,” said she, +snappishly. +</p> +<p> +“No, madam; you may probably find that you’ll need them both at the end of +our interview.” + </p> +<p> +“What do you mean, sir?” asked she, haughtily. +</p> +<p> +“This is no time for grand airs or mock dignity, madam,” said I, with the +tone of the avenging angel. “Do you know these? are these in your hand? +Deny it if you can.” + </p> +<p> +“Why should I deny it? Of course they’re mine.” + </p> +<p> +“And you wrote this, and this, and this?” cried I, almost in a scream, as +I shook forth one after another of the letters. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t you know I did?” said she, as hotly; “and nothing beyond a venial +mistake in one of them!” + </p> +<p> +“A what, woman? a what?” + </p> +<p> +“A mere slip of the pen, sir. You know very well how I used to sit up half +the night at my exercises?” + </p> +<p> +“Exercises!” + </p> +<p> +“Well, themes, if you like better; the Count made me make clean copies of +them, with all his corrections, and send them to him every day—here +are the rough ones;” and she opened a drawer filled with a mass of papers +all scrawled over and blotted. “And now, sir, once more, what do you +mean?” + </p> +<p> +I did not wait to answer her, but rushed down to the landlord. “Where does +that Count Castrocaro live?” I asked. +</p> +<p> +“Nowhere in particular, I believe, sir; and for the present he has left +Turin—started for Genoa by the diligence five minutes ago. He’s a +Gran’ Galantuomo, sir,” added he, as I stood stupefied. +</p> +<p> +“I am aware of that,” said I, as I crept back to my room to finish my +packing. +</p> +<p> +“Did you settle with the Count?” asked my wife at the door. +</p> +<p> +“Yes,” said I, with my head buried in my trunk. +</p> +<p> +“And he was perfectly satisfied?” + </p> +<p> +“Of course he was—he has every reason to be so.” + </p> +<p> +“I am glad of it,” said she, moving away—“he had a deal of trouble +with those themes of mine. No one knows what they cost him.” I could have +told what they cost <i>me</i>; but I never did, till the present moment. +</p> +<p> +I need not say with what an appetite I dined on that day, nor with what +abject humility I behaved to my wife, nor how I skulked down in the +evening to the landlord to apologise for not being able to pay the bill +before I left, an unexpected demand having left me short of cash. All +these, seventeen years ago as they are, have not yet lost their +bitterness, nor have I yet arrived at the time when I can think with +composure of this friend of Gioberti. +</p> +<p> +Admiral Dalrymple tells us, amongst his experiences as a farmer, that he +gave twenty pounds for a dung-hill, “and he’d give ten more to any one +who’d tell him what to do with it.” I strongly suspect this is pretty much +the case with the Italians as regards their fleet. There it is—at +least, there is the beginning of it; and when it shall be complete, where +is it to go? what is it to protect? whom to attack? +</p> +<p> +The very last thing Italians have in their minds is a war with England. If +we have not done them any great or efficient service, we have always +spoken civilly of them, and bade them a God-speed. But, besides a certain +goodwill that they feel for us, they entertain—as a nation with a +very extended and ill-protected coast-line ought—a considerable +dread of a maritime power that could close every port they possess, and +lay some very important towns in ashes. +</p> +<p> +Now, it is exactly by the possession of a fleet that, in any future war +between England and France, these people may be obliged to ally themselves +to France. The French will want them in the Mediterranean, and they cannot +refuse when called on. +</p> +<p> +Count Cavour always kept telling our Foreign Office, “A strong Italy is +the best thing in the world for you. A strong Italy is the surest of all +barriers against France.” There may be some truth in the assertion if +Italy could spring at once—Minerva fashion—all armed and ready +for combat, and stand out as a first-rate power in Europe; but to do this +requires years of preparation, long years too; and it is precisely in +these years of interval that France can become all-dominant in Italy—the +master, and the not very merciful master, of her destinies in everything. +France has the guardianship of Italy—with this addition, that she +can make the minority last as long as she pleases. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps my Garibaldian companion has impregnated me with an unreasonable +amount of anti-French susceptibility, for certainly he abuses our dear +allies with a zeal and a gusto that does one’s heart good to listen to; +and I do feel like that honest Bull, commemorated by Mathews, that “I hate +prejudice—I hate the French.” So it is: these revolutionists, these +levellers, these men of the people, are never weary of reviling the French +Emperor for being a <i>parvenu</i>. Human inconsistency cannot go much +farther than this. Not but I perfectly agree with my Garibaldian, that we +have all agreed to take the most absurdly exaggerated estimate of the +Emperor’s ability. Except in some attempts, and not always successful +attempts, to carry out the policy and plans of the first Empire, there is +really nothing that deserves the name of statesmanship in his career. +Wherever he has ventured on a policy, and accompanied it by a prediction, +it has been a failure. Witness the proud declaration of Italy from the +Alps to the Adriatic, with its corroboration in the Treaty of Villafranca! +The Emperor, in his policy, resembles one of those whist-players who never +plan a game, but play trick by trick, and rather hope to win by +discovering a revoke than from any honest success of their own hand. It is +all the sharp practice of statecraft that he employs: nor has he many +resources in cunning. The same dodge that served him in the Crimea he +revived at Villafranca. It is always the same ace he has in his sleeve! +</p> +<p> +The most ardent Imperialist will not pretend to say that he knows his road +out of rome or Mexico, or even Madagascar. For small intrigue, short +speeches to deputations, and mock stag-hunts, he has not his superior +anywhere. And now, here we are in Genoa, at the Hotel Feder, where poor +O’Connell died, and there’s no fleet, not a frigate, in the port. +</p> +<p> +“Where are they?” + </p> +<p> +“At Spezia.” + </p> +<p> +“Where is Spezia?” + </p> +<p> +The landlord, to whom this question is propounded, takes out of a +pigeon-hole of his desk a large map and unfolds it, saying, proudly, +“There, sir, that is Spezia—a harbour that could hold Portsmouth, +and Plymouth, and Brest, and Cherbourg “—I’m not sure he didn’t say +Calais—“and yet have room for our Italian fleet, which, in two +years’ time, will be one of the first in Europe.” + </p> +<p> +“The ships are building, I suppose?” said I. +</p> +<p> +“They are.” + </p> +<p> +“And where?” + </p> +<p> +“In America, at Toulon, and in England.” + </p> +<p> +“None in Italy?” + </p> +<p> +“Pardon me; there is a corvette on the stocks at Leghorn, and they are +repairing a boiler at Genoa. Ah! Signor John Bull, take care; we have iron +and coal mines, we have oak and hemp, and tallow and tar. There was a +winged lion once that swept the seas before people sang ‘Rule Britannia.’ +History is going to repeat itself.” + </p> +<p> +“Let me be called at eight to-morrow morning, and my coffee be ready by +nine.” + </p> +<p> +“And we shall want a vetturino for Spezia,” added my Garibaldian; “let him +be here by eleven.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +GARIBALDI’S WORSHIPPERS. +</h2> +<p> +The road from Genoa to Spezia is one of the most beautiful in Europe. As +the Apennines descend to the sea they form innumerable little bays and +creeks, alongside of which the road winds—now coasting the very +shore, now soaring aloft on high-perched cliffs, and looking down into +deep dells, or to the waving tops of tall pine-trees. Seaward, it is a +succession of yellow-stranded bays, land-locked and narrow; and on the +land side are innumerable valleys, some waving with horse-chestnut and +olive, and others stern and rock-bound, but varying in colour from the +bluish-grey of marble to every shade of porphyry. +</p> +<p> +For several miles after we left Genoa, the road presented a succession of +handsome villas, which, neglected and uncared for, and in most part +untenanted, were yet so characteristically Italian in all their vast-ness—their +massive style and spacious plan—as to be great ornaments of the +scenery. Their gardens, too—such glorious wildernesses of rich +profusion—where the fig and the oleander, the vine and the orange, +tangle and intertwine—and cactuses, that would form the wonder of +our conservatories, are trained into hedgerows to protect cabbages. My +companion pointed out to me one of these villas on a little jutting +promontory of rock, with a narrow bay on one side, almost hidden by the +overhanging chestnut-trees. “That,” said he, “is the Villa Spinola. It was +from there, after a supper with his friend Vecchi, that Garibaldi sailed +on his expedition to Marsala. A sort of decent secrecy was maintained as +to the departure of the expedition; but the cheers of those on shore, as +the boats pulled off, told that the brave buccaneers carried with them the +heartfelt good wishes of their countrymen.” Wandering on in his talk from +the campaign of Sicily and Calabria, my companion spoke of the last wild +freak of Garibaldi and the day of Aspromonte, and finally of the hero’s +imprisonment at Varignano, in the Gulf of Spezia. +</p> +<p> +It appeared from his account that the poor wounded sufferer would have +fared very ill, had it not been for the provident kindness and care of his +friends in England, who supplied him with everything he could want and a +great deal he could by no possibility make use of. Wine of every kind, for +instance, was largely sent to one who was a confirmed water-drinker, and +who, except when obliged by the impure state of the water, never ventured +to taste wine. If now and then the zealous anxiety to be of service had +its ludicrous side—and packages arrived of which all the ingenuity +of the General’s followers failed to detect what the meaning might be—there +was something very noble and very touching in this spontaneous sympathy of +a whole people, and so Garibaldi felt it. +</p> +<p> +The personal homage of the admirers—the worshippers they might be +called—was, however, an infliction that often pushed the patience of +Garibaldi’s followers to its limit, and would have overcome the gentle +forbearance of any other living creature than Garibaldi himself. They came +in shoals. Steamboats and diligences were crammed with them, and the +boatmen of Spezia plied as thriving a trade that summer as though +Garibaldi were a saint, at whose shrine the devout of all Europe came to +worship. In vain obstacles were multiplied and difficulties to entrance +invented. In vain it was declared that only a certain number of visitors +were daily admitted, and that the number was already complete. In vain the +doctors announced that the General’s condition was prejudiced, and his +feverish state increased, by these continual invasions. Each new arrival +was sure to imagine that there was something special or peculiar in his +case to make him an exception to any rule of exclusion. +</p> +<p> +“I knew Garibaldi in Monte Video. You have only to tell him it’s Tomkins; +he’ll be overjoyed to see me.” “I travelled with him from Manchester to +Bridgeport; he’ll remember me when he sees me; I lent him a wrapper in the +train.” “I knew his son Menotti when at school.” “I was in New York when +Garibaldi was a chandler, and I was always asking for his candles;” such +and suchlike were the claims which would not be denied. At last the +infliction became insupportable. Some nights of unusual pain and suffering +required that every precaution against excitement should be taken, and +measures were accordingly concerted how visitors should be totally +excluded. There was this difficulty in the matter, that it might fall at +this precise moment some person of real consequence might have, or some +one whose presence Garibaldi would really have been well pleased to enjoy. +All these considerations were, however, postponed to the patient’s safety, +and an order was sent to the several hotels where strangers usually +stopped to announce that Garibaldi could not be seen. +</p> +<p> +“There is a story,” said my companion, “which I have heard more than once +of this period, but for whose authenticity I will certainly not vouch. <i>Se +non vero e’ ben trovato</i>, as regards the circumstance. It was said that +a party of English ladies had arrived at the chief hotel, having come as a +deputation from some heaven-knows-what association in England, to see the +General, and make their own report on his health, his appearance, and what +they deemed his prospect of perfect recovery. They had come a very long +journey, endured a considerable share of fatigues and certain police +attentions, which are not exactly what are called amenities. They had +come, besides, on an errand which might warrant a degree of insistance +even were they—which they were not—of an order that patiently +puts up with denial. When their demand for admission was replied to by a +reference to the general order excluding all visitors, they indignantly +refused to be classed in such a category. They were not idle tourists, or +sensation-hunting travellers. They were a deputation! They came from the +Associated Brothers and Sisters of Freedom—from the Branch Committee +of the Ear of Crying Nationalities—they were not to be sent away in +this light and thoughtless manner. +</p> +<p> +“The correspondence was animated. It lasted the whole day, and the +last-sent epistle of the ladies bore the date of half-past eleven at +night. This was a document of startling import; for, after expressing, and +not always in most measured phrase, the indignant disappointment of the +writers, it went on to throw out, but in a cloud-like misty sort of way, +the terrible consequences that might ensue when they returned to England +with the story of their rejection. +</p> +<p> +“Perhaps this was a mere chance shot; at all events, it decided the +battle. The Garibaldians read it as a declaration of strict blockade; and +that, from the hour of these ladies’ arrival in England, all supplies +would be stopped. Now, as it happened that, in by far the greater number +of cases, the articles sent out found their way to the suite of Garibaldi, +not to the General himself, and that cambric shirts and choice hosiery, +silk vests, and fur-lined slippers, became the ordinary wear of people to +whom such luxuries were not known even by description, it was no mean +menace that seemed to declare all this was to have an end. +</p> +<p> +“One used to sleep in a rich fur dressing-gown; another took a bottle of +Arundel’s port at his breakfast; a third was habituating himself to that +English liqueur called ‘Punch sauce,’ and so on; and they very reasonably +disliked coming back to the dietary supplied by Victor Emmanuel. +</p> +<p> +“It was in this critical emergency that an inventive genius developed +itself. There was amongst the suite of Garibaldi an old surgeon, Eipari, +one of the most faithful and attached of all his followers, and who bore +that amount of resemblance to Garibaldi which could be imparted by hair, +mustache, and beard of the same yellowish-red colour, and eyes somewhat +closely set. To put the doctor in bed, and make him personate the General, +was the plan—a plan which, as it was meant to save his chief some +annoyance, he would have acceded to were it to cost him far more than was +now intended. +</p> +<p> +“To the half-darkened room, therefore, where Eipari lay dressed in his +habitual red shirt, propped up by pillows, the deputation was introduced. +The sight of the hero was, however, too much for them. One dropped, +Madonna-wise, with hands clasped across her bosom, at the foot of his bed; +another fainted as she passed the threshold; a third gained the bedside to +grasp his hand, and sank down in an ecstasy of devotion to water it with +her tears; while the strong-minded woman of the party took out her +scissors and cut four several locks off that dear and noble head. They +sobbed over him—they blubbered over him—they compared him with +his photograph, and declared he was libelled—they showered cards +over him to get his autograph; and when, at length, by persuasion, not +unassisted by mild violence, they were induced to withdraw, they declared +that, for those few moments of ecstasy, they’d have willingly made a +pilgrimage to Mecca. +</p> +<p> +“It is said,” continued my informant, “that Ripari never could be induced +to give another representation; and that he declared the luxuries that +came from England were dear at the cost of being caressed by a deputation +of sympathisers. +</p> +<p> +“But to Garibaldi himself, the sympathy and the sympathisers went on to +the last; and kind wishes and winter-clothing still find their way, with +occasionally very tiresome visitors, to the lone rock at Caprera.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +SOMETHING ABOUT SOLFERINO AND SHIPS. +</h2> +<p> +Our host of the Feder was not wrong. There was not a word of exaggeration +in what he said of Spezia. It could contain all the harbours of France and +England, and have room for all the fleets of Europe besides. About seven +miles in depth, and varying in width from two to three and a half, it is +fissured on every side by beautiful little bays, with deep water +everywhere, and not a sunk rock, or shoal, or a bar, throughout the whole +extent. Even the sea-opening of the Gulf has its protection by the long +coast-line of Tuscany, stretching away to the southward and eastward, so +that the security is perfect, and a vessel once anchored within the +headlands between Lerici and Palmaria is as safe as in dock. +</p> +<p> +The first idea of making a great arsenal and naval depot of Spezia came +from the Great Emperor. It is said that he was not more than one day +there, but in that time he planned the fort which bears his name, and +showed how the port could be rendered all but impregnable. Cavour took up +the notion, and pursued it with all his wonted energy and activity during +the last three or four years of his life. He carried through the Chamber +his project, and obtained a vote for upwards of two millions sterling; but +his death, which occurred soon after, was a serious blow to the +undertaking; and, like most of the political legacies of the great +statesman, the arsenal of Spezia fell into the hands of weak executors. +</p> +<p> +The first great blunder committed was to accord the chief contract to a +bubble company, who sold it, to be again resold; so that it is said +something like fifteen changes of proprietary occurred before the first +spadeful of earth was turned. +</p> +<p> +The inordinate jealousy Italians have of foreigners, and their fear lest +they should “utilise” Italy, and carry away all her wealth with them, has +been the source of innumerable mistakes. From this, and their own +ignorance of marine engineering, Spezia has already, without the slightest +evidence of a commencement, swallowed up above eight millions of francs—the +only palpable results being the disfigurement of a very beautiful road, +and the bankruptcy of some half-dozen contractors. +</p> +<p> +There is nothing of which one hears more, than of the readiness and +facility with which an Italian learns a new art or a new trade, adapts +himself to the use of new tools, and acquires a dexterity in the +management of new machinery. +</p> +<p> +Every newly-come English engineer was struck with this, and expressed +freely his anticipations of what so gifted a people might become. After a +while, however, if questioned, he would confess himself disappointed—that +after the first extraordinary show of intelligence no progress was made—that +they seemed marvellous in the initiative, but did nothing after. They +speedily grew weary of whatever they could do or say, no matter in what +fashion, and impatiently desired to try something new. The John Bull +contentedness to attain perfection in some one branch, and never ask to go +beyond it, was a sentiment they could not understand. Every one, in fact, +would have liked to do everything, and, as a consequence, do it +exceedingly ill. +</p> +<p> +Assuredly the Count Cavour was the political Marquis de Carabas of Italy. +Everything you see was his! No other head seemed to contrive, no other eye +to see, nor ear to hear. These railroads—as much for military +movements as passenger traffic—this colossal harbour, even to the +two iron-clads that lie there at anchor—were all of his designing. +They are ugly-looking craft, and have a look of pontoons rather than ships +of war; but they are strong, and have a low draught of water, and were +intended especially for the attack of Venice, just when the Emperor pulled +up short at Villafranca. It is not generally known, I believe, but I can +vouch for the fact, that so terrified were the Austrians on receiving at +Venice the disastrous news of Solferino, that three of the largest +steamers of the Austrian Lloyd’s Company were brought up, and sunk within +twelve hours after the battle. So hurriedly was the whole done that no +time was given to remove the steward’s stores, and the vessels went down +as they stood! +</p> +<p> +This reminds me of a little incident, for whose exact truth I can +guarantee. On the day of the battle of Solferino, the Austrian Envoy at +Rome dined with the Cardinal Antonelli. It was a very joyous little +dinner, each in the highest spirits—satisfied with the present, and +full of hope for the future. The telegram which arrived at mid-day told +that the troops were in motion, and that the artillery fire had already +opened. The position was a noble one—the army full of spirit, and +all confident that before the sun should set the tide of victory would +have turned, and the white legions of the Danube be in hot pursuit of +their flying enemy. Indeed, the Envoy came to dinner fortified with a mass +of letters from men high in command, all of which assumed as indisputable +that the French must be beaten. Of the Italians they never spoke at all. +</p> +<p> +As the two friends sat over the dessert, they discussed what at that +precise moment might be going on over the battle-field. Was the conflict +still continuing? Had the French reserves been brought up? Had they, too, +been thrown back, beaten and disordered? and where was the fourth corps +under the Prince Napoleon? They were forty thousand strong—could +they have arrived in time from the Po? All these casualties, and many +others, did they talk over, but never once launching a doubt as to the +issue, or ever dreaming that the day was not to reverse all the late past, +and bring back the Austrians in triumph to Milan. +</p> +<p> +As they sat, the Prefect of Police was announced and introduced. He came +with the list of the persons who were to be arrested and sent to prison—they +were one hundred and eighteen, some of them among the first families of +Rome—so soon as certain tidings of the victory arrived, and the game +of reaction might be safe to begin. +</p> +<p> +“No news yet, Signor Prefetto! come back at ten,” said the Cardinal +</p> +<p> +At ten he presented himself once more. The Cardinal and his friend were +taking coffee, but less joyous, it seemed, than before. At least they +looked anxious for news, and started at every noise in the street that +might announce new-come tidings. “We have heard nothing since you were +here,” said the Cardinal. “His Excellency thinks that, at a moment of +immense exigency, they may not have immediately bethought them of sending +off a despatch.” + </p> +<p> +“There can be no doubt what the news will be when it comes,” said the +Envoy, “and I’d say, make the arrests at once.” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t know; I’m not sure. I think I’d rather counsel a little more +patience,” said the Cardinal. “What if you were to come back at, let us +say, midnight.” The Prefect bowed, and withdrew. +</p> +<p> +At midnight it was the same scene, only that the actors were more +agitated; the Envoy, at least, worked up to a degree of impatience that +bordered on fever; for while he persisted in declaring that the result was +certain, he continued to censure, in very-severe terms, the culpable +carelessness of those charged with the transmission of news. “Ah!” cried +he, “there it comes at last!” and a loud summons at the bell resounded +through the house. +</p> +<p> +“A telegram, Eminence,” said the servant, entering with the despatch. The +Envoy tore it open: there were but two words,—“<i>Sanglante déroute</i>.” + </p> +<p> +The Cardinal took the paper from the hands of the overwhelmed and +panic-struck minister, and read it. He stood for a few seconds gazing on +the words, not a line or lineament in his face betraying the slightest +emotion; then, turning to the Envoy, he said, “Bon soir; allons dormir;” + and moved away with his usual quick little step, and retired. +</p> +<p> +And all this time I have been forgetting the Italian fleet, which lies +yonder beneath me. The Garibaldi, that they took from the Neapolitans; the +Duca di Genova, the Maria Adelaide, and the Regina are there, all +screw-propellers of fifty guns each; the Etna, a steam-corvette; and some +six or seven old sailing craft, used as school ships; and, lastly, the two +cuirassée gunboats, Formidabile and Terribile, and which, with a jealousy +imitated from the French, no one is admitted on board of. They are +provided with “rams” under the water-line, and have a strange apparatus by +which about one-third of the deck towards the bow can be raised, like the +lid of a snuff-box, leaving the forepart of the ship almost on a level +with the water. Under what circumstances, and how, this provision is to be +made available, I have not the very vaguest conception. +</p> +<p> +These vessels were never intended as sea-going ships; and the batteries +are an exaggeration of the mistake in the Gloire, for even with the +slightest sea the ports must be closed. Besides this defect, they roll +abominably, and with a full head of steam on they cannot accomplish seven +knots. +</p> +<p> +Turning from the ships to the harbour, I could not help thinking of Sydney +Smith’s remark on the Reform Club, “I prefer your room to your company;” + for, after all, what a sorry stud it is for such a magnificent stable! It +is but a beginning, you will say. True enough, and so is everything just +now here; but, except the Genoese, the Italians have few real sailors. +There are no deep-sea fisheries, and the small craft which creep along +close to shore are not the nurseries of seamen. The world, however, has +resolved, by a large vote, to be hopeful about Italy; and, of course, she +will have a fleet, as she will have all the trade of the Levant, immensely +productive mines, and vast regions of cotton. “What for no?” as Meg Dodds +says; but I can’t help thinking there are no people in Europe so much +alike as the Italians and the Irish; and I ask myself, How is it that +every one is so sanguine about the one, and so hopeless about the other? +Why do we hear of the capacity and the intelligence of the former, and +only of the latter what pertains to their ignorance and their sloth? Oh! +unjust generation of men! have not my poor countrymen all the qualities +you extol in these same Peninsulars, plus a few others not to be +disparaged? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE STRANGER AT THE CROCE DI MALTA. +</h2> +<p> +At the Croce di Malta, where we stopped—the Odessa, we heard, was +atrociously bad—we met a somewhat depressed countryman, whose +familiarity with place and people was indicated by several little traits. +He rebuked the waiter for the salad oil, and was speedily supplied with +better; he remonstrated about the wine, and a superior “cru” was served +the day following. The book of the arrivals, too, was brought to him each +day as he sat down to table, and he grunted out, I remember, in no very +complimentary fashion as he read our names, “Nobodies.” + </p> +<p> +My Garibaldian friend had gone over to Massa, so that I found myself alone +with this gentleman on the night of my arrival; for, when the company of +the <i>table-d’hôte</i> withdrew, he and I were discovered, as the +stage-people say, seated opposite to each other at the fire. +</p> +<p> +It blew hard without; the sea beat loudly on the shingly shore, and even +sent some drifts of spray against the windows; while within doors a +cheerful wood-fire blazed on the ample hearth, and the low-ceilinged room +did not look a whit the worse that it suggested snugness instead of +splendour. I had got my cup of coffee and my cognac on a little table +beside me; and while I filled the bowl of my pipe, I bethought me how +cheap and come-at-able are often the materials of our comfort, if one had +but the prudence which ignores all display. My companion, apparently +otherwise occupied in thought, sat gazing moodily at the fire, and to all +seeming unaware of my presence. +</p> +<p> +“Will my smoking annoy you, sir?” asked I, as I was ready to begin. +</p> +<p> +“No,” said he, without looking up. “I’d like to know where one could go to +live nowadays if it did.” + </p> +<p> +“Very true,” said I; “the practice is almost universal” + </p> +<p> +“So is child-murder, so is profane swearing, so is wearing a beard, and +poisoning by strychnine.” + </p> +<p> +I was somewhat struck by his enumeration of modern atrocities, and I said, +in a tone intended to invite converse, “You are no admirer, then, of what +some are fain to call progress?” + </p> +<p> +He started, and, turning a fierce sharp glance on me, said, “I’d rather +you’d touch me with that hot poker there, sir, than hurl that hateful word +at my ears. If there’s a thing I hate the most, it’s what cant—a +vile modern slang—calls ‘Progress.’ You’re just in the spot at this +moment to mark one of its high successes. Do you know Spezia?” “Not in the +least; never was here before.” “Well, sir, I have known it, I’ll not stop +to count how many years; but I knew it when that spot yonder, where you +see that vile tall chimney, with its tail of murky smoke, was a beautiful +little villa, all overgrown with fig and olive trees. Where you perceive +that red glare—the flame of a smelting furnace—there was an +orangery. I ought to know the spot well. There, where a summerhouse stood, +on that rocky point, they have got a crane and a windlass. Now, turn to +this other side. The road you saw to-day, crossed with four main lines, +cut up, almost impassable between mud, rubbish, and fallen timber, with +swampy excavations on one side and brick-fields on the other, led—ay, +and not four years ago—along the margin of the sea, with a forest of +chestnuts on the other side, two lines of acacias forming a shade along +it, so that in the mid-day of an Italian July you might walk it in +delicious shadow. In the Gulf itself the whole scene was mirrored, and not +a headland, nor rock, nor cliff, that was not pictured below. It was, in a +word, a little paradise; nor were the people all unworthy of their lovely +birthplace. They were a quiet, civil, obliging, simple-minded set—if +not inviting strangers to settle amongst them, never rude or repelling to +them; equitable in dealings, and strange to all disturbance or outrage. +What they are now is no more easy to say than what a rivulet is when a +torrent has carried away its banks and swept its bed. Two thousand +navvies, the outsweepings of jails and the galleys, have come down to the +works; a horde of contractors, sub-contractors, with the several staffs of +clerks, inspectors, and suchlike, have settled on the spot, ravaging its +beauty, uprooting its repose, vulgarising its simple rusticity, and +converting the very gem of the Mediterranean into a dreary swamp—a +vast amphitheatre, where liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul +miasma, centrifugal pumps, and tertian fevers, fight all day for the +mastery. And for what?—for what? To fill the pockets of knavish +ministers and thieving officials—to make an arsenal that will never +be finished, for a fleet that will never be built.” My companion, it is +needless to say, was no optimist; but the strange point was, that while he +was unsparing of his censure on Cavour and the “Piedmontese party,” he was +no apologist for the old state of things in Italy. So far from it, that he +launched out freely in attack of Papal bigotry, superstition, and +corruption, and freely corroborated our own Premier’s assertions, by +calling the Pope’s the “worst government in Europe.” In fact, he showed +very clearly that the smaller states of Italy were well or ill +administered in the direct ratio that they admitted or rejected Papal +interference,—Modena being the worst, and Tuscany the best of them. +</p> +<p> +Though he certainly knew his subject so far as details went—for he +not merely knew Italy well in its several provinces, but he understood the +characters and tempers of the leading Italians—yet, with all this, I +could not help asking him, If he was not satisfied with the old Italy, and +yet did not like the new, what he did wish for? +</p> +<p> +“I have my theory on that subject, sir,” said he; “nor am I the less +enamoured of it that I never yet met the man I could induce to adopt it.” + </p> +<p> +“It is no worse than the fate of all discoverers, I suppose,” said I; +“Columbus saw land two whole days before his followers.” + </p> +<p> +“Columbus was a humbug, sir, and no more discovered America than you did.” + </p> +<p> +I was so afraid of a digression here that I stammered out a partial +concurrence, and asked for some account of his project for Italy. +</p> +<p> +“I’d unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a small +circle around Rome, are not Latins—they are Greeks. I’d bring them +back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with craft and +subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they’d not cheat the +‘Hellenes’ as they do the French and the English; and as the only true way +to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I’d unite them to a race +that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What is it, I ask you, +makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, the prudent, +hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States? Simply the +fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no longer serves him. +The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and Paddy must use his +hands instead of his head. The same would happen with the Italian. Give +him a Greek master, and you’ll see what he’ll become.” + </p> +<p> +“But the Greeks, after all,” said I, “do not present such a splendid +example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands.” + </p> +<p> +“And don’t you see why?” broke he in. “Have you ever looked into a +gambling-house when the company had no ‘pigeon,’ and were obliged to play +against each other. They have lost all decency—all the semblance of +good manners and decorum. Whatever little politeness they had put on to +impose upon the outsider was gone, and there they were in all the naked +atrocity of their bad natures. It is thus you see the Greeks. You have +dropped in upon them unfairly; you have invaded a privacy they had hoped +might be respected. Give them a nation to cheat, however; let the pigeon +be introduced, and you’ll not see a better bred and a more courtly people +in Europe.” + </p> +<p> +That they had great social qualities he proceeded to show from a number of +examples. They were, in fact, in the world of long ago what the French are +to our own day, and there was no reason to suppose that the race had lost +its old characteristics. According to my companion’s theory, Force had +only its brief interval of domination anywhere; the superior intelligence +was sure to gain the upper hand at last; and we, in our opposition to this +law, were supply retarding an inevitable tendency of nature—protracting +the fulfilment of what we could not prevent. +</p> +<p> +I got him back from these speculations to speak of himself, and he told me +some experiences which will, perhaps, account for the displeasure with +which he regards the changed fortunes of Spezia. I shall give his +narrative as nearly as I can in his own words, and in a chapter to itself. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE STRANGE MAN’S SORROW. +</h2> +<p> +“When I first knew Spezia, it was a very charming spot to pass the summer +in. The English had not found it out A bottle of Harvey sauce or a copy of +‘Galignani’ had never been seen here; and the morning meal, which now +figures in my bill as ‘Dejeuner complet—two francs.’ was then called +‘Coffee,’ and priced twopence. I used to pass my day in a small sail-boat, +and in my evenings I played halfpenny whist with the judge and the +commander of the forces and a retired envoy, who, out of a polite +attention to me as a stranger, agreed to play such high stakes during my +sojourn at the Baths. +</p> +<p> +“They were excellent people, of unblemished character, and a politeness I +have rarely seen equalled. Nobody could sneeze without the whole company +rising to wish him a long and prosperous life, or a male heir to his name; +and as for turning the trump card without a smile and a bow all round to +the party, it was a thing unheard of. +</p> +<p> +“I thought if I could only secure a spot to live in in such an Arcadia, it +would be charming, but this was a great difficulty. No one had any +accommodation more than he wanted for himself. The very isolation that +gave the place its charm excluded all speculation, and not a house was to +be had. In my voyagings, however, around the Gulf, I landed one day at a +little inlet, surrounded with high lands, and too small to be called a +bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a small villa. It +looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, and where you take +off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs are made and the +rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one side and an orangery at +the other, and it all looked the neatest and prettiest little thing one +ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I drew my boat on shore and +strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not even a dog. There was a deep +well with a draw-bucket, and I filled my gourd with ice-cold water; and +then plucking a ripe orange that had just given me a bob in the eye, I sat +down to eat it. While I was engaged, I heard a wicket open and shut, and +saw an old man, very shabbily dressed, and with a mushroom straw hat, +coming towards me. Before I could make excuses for my intrusion, he had +welcomed me to Pertusola—‘The Nook,’ in English—and invited me +to step in and have a glass of wine. +</p> +<p> +“I took him for the steward or fattore, and acceded, not sorry to ask some +questions about the villa and its owner. He showed me over the house, +explaining with much pride how a certain kitchen-range came from England, +though nobody ever knew the use of it, but it was all very comfortable. +The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more space, and +contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would have approved +of. Yet there were capabilities—great capabilities; and so, before I +left, I took it from the old gentleman in the rusty costume, who turned +out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the ‘commendatore’ of I don’t know +what order, and various other dignities beside, all recited and set forth +in the lease. +</p> +<p> +“I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved +the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn’t an island, but it was all +but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock denied +access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable pine wood +to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that even now, when +I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire of an evening, I +just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through its olive groves, or +watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara mountains. +</p> +<p> +“I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got +flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little +plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses, +so that the Queen—she was at Spezia for the bathing—came once +to see my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was +as gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in +their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with +enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times as +inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and its +quality—was it a spring—did it ever fail—and when, and +how? Then as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? +What the anchorage was like—mud—and why mud? And when I said +there was always a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, +why? and I did explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, +which acted as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back +to verify my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining +everything, and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to +experience the currents of air. ‘You are right,’ said he, as he got into +his boat, ‘quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a +smelting-furnace.’ +</p> +<p> +“I thought it odd praise at the time, but before six months I received +notice to quit. +</p> +<p> +“Pertusola had been sold to a lead company, one of the directors having +strongly recommended the site as an admirable harbour, with good water, +and a perpetual draught of wind, equal to a blast-furnace.” + </p> +<p> +Looking at the dress-coat in which you once captivated dinner-parties, on +a costeimonger—seeing the strong-boned hunter that has carried you +over post and rail, in a cab,—are sore trials; but nothing, +according to my companion’s description, to the desecration of your house +and home by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the “Inferno,” + too, pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its +flash, and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the +passionate warmth with which he described it. +</p> +<p> +“They had begun that chimney, sir,” cried he, “before I got out of the +house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they +were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see +the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the +place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can see +on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no depth to +anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in stillness. +No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, I must be +brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn’t been eight months +there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and four persons in plain +clothes landed from her, and pottered about the shore—I thought +looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my house, and asked +permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace. I acceded, and in +they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do you think he was? +The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran cold when I saw him. +</p> +<p> +“‘You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,’ said he to me, coolly. +</p> +<p> +“‘Yes, and I might have been living there still,’ replied I, ‘if it had +not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak enough +to be polite.’ +</p> +<p> +“He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, +passed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, and +I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; for not +only did he describe the exact measurements between various points, but +the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the currents, and the +prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by running out a pier +here, and a breakwater there—by filling up this, and deepening that—safe +anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while the headlands could be +easily fortified, and ‘at a moderate cost,’ I quote himself, ‘of say +twenty two or three millions of francs, while a fort erected on the island +there would command the whole entrance.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?’ cried I; for, as +they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly. +</p> +<p> +“He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, ‘Who +knows? the French perhaps—perhaps your own people one of these +days.’ +</p> +<p> +“I’d like to have said, but I didn’t, ‘We could walk in and walk out here, +with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with a +mackintosh.’ +</p> +<p> +“They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf and +dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man—he looked +exactly like an owl—said, with a little grin, ‘We’re going to +disturb you again.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘How so?’ cried I; ‘you can’t smelt lead here.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘No, but we’re going to make an arsenal. Where you stand now will be a +receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You’ll have to +clear out before the New Year.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Who is he? who is that with the spectacles?’ asked I of one of the +servants, who waited outside with cloaks and umbrellas. +</p> +<p> +“‘That’s the Conte di Cavour,’ said the fellow, haughtily; and thus was +the whole murder out at once. They turned me out, sir, in two months, and +I never ventured to take a lease of a place till he died. After that +event, I purchased a little spot on the island of Tino yonder, and built +myself a cottage. They could neither smelt metal nor build a ship there, +and I hugged myself at the thought of safety. But, would you believe it? +last week—only last week—his successor, in rummaging over +Cavour’s papers in the Foreign Office, comes upon a packet labelled +‘Spezia,’ and discovers a memorandum in these words, ‘The English Admiral, +at dinner to-day, laughed at the idea of defending the mouth of the Gulf +from the island. He said the entrance should be two-thirds closed by a +breakwater, and a strong fort <i>à fleur d’eau</i> built on Tino. I have +thought of it all night; he is perfectly right, and I’ll do it;’ and here, +sir,” said my companion, drawing a paper from his pocket, “is a +‘sommation’ from the minister to surrender my holding on Tino, receiving a +due compensation for the same, and once more betake myself, heaven knows +where; for, though the great Count Cavour is dead and gone, his grand +intentions are turning up every day, out of drawers and pigeonholes, and I +shrewdly suspect that neither Pio Nono nor myself will live to see the +last of them.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE. +</h2> +<p> +My Garibaldian friend has returned, but only to bid me good-bye and be off +again. The Government, it would seem, are rather uneasy as to the +movements of the “Beds,” and quietly intimated to my friend that they were +sure he had something particular to do—some urgent private affairs—at +Geneva; and, like the well-bred dog in the story, he does not wait for any +further suggestions, but goes at once. +</p> +<p> +He revenged himself, however, all the time at breakfast, by talking very +truculently before the waiters of what would happen when Garibaldi took +the field again, and how miserably small Messrs Batazzi & Co. would +look under the circumstances. Indeed, as he warmed with his subject, he +went the length of declaring that, without a very ample apology for the +events of Aspromonte, he did not believe Garibaldi would consent to take +Venice, or drive the French out of Rome. +</p> +<p> +With a spirit of tantalising he prolonged this same breakfast for upwards +of two hours, during which the officer of the gendarmerie came and went, +and came again, very eager to see him depart, but evidently with +instructions neither to molest nor interfere with him. +</p> +<p> +“Just look at that beggar,” cried the Garibaldian; “if he has come in here +once during the last hour, he has come a dozen times, and all on my +account! And I mean to smoke three ‘cavours’ over my anisetto before I +leave. Waiter, tell the vetturino he’ll have plenty of time to throw a +feed to his cattle before I start. You know,” added he, “if I was disposed +to be troublesome, I’d not budge: I’d write up to Turin to the Legation +and claim British protection; and I’d have these fellows on the hip, for +they stupidly gave me a reason for my expulsion. They said I was +conspiring. Now I could say, Prove it; and if we only went to law, it +would take ten or twelve years to decide it.” + </p> +<p> +My companion now went on to show that, by a small expenditure of money and +a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity, a lawsuit need never end in Italy. +“First of all, you could ask the opposite party, Who was his advocate? and +on his naming him, you could immediately set to work to show that this man +was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with the commonest pretension +to honesty would dream of employing him. The history of his father could +be adduced, and any private little anecdotes of his mother would find a +favourable opportunity for mention. Though a mere skirmish, if judiciously +managed, this will occupy a week or two, and at the same time serve to +indicate that you mean to show fight; for by this time the ‘Legale’s’ +blood will be up, and he is certain to make reprisals on <i>your</i> man, +so that for a month or so you and the other principal are in the position +of men who, having come out to fight a duel, are first gratified with the +spectacle of a row between the seconds. However, at last it is arranged +that the lawyers are worthy of each other; and the next step is to demand +the names of all the witnesses. This opens a campaign of unlimited +duration, for, as nobody is rash enough to trust himself or his cause to +real and <i>bonâ-fide</i> testimony, witnesses are usually selected +amongst the most astute and ready-witted persons of your acquaintance.” + “Oh,” cried I, “this is a little too strong, isn’t it?” “Let me give you +an instance,” said he, good-humouredly, and not in the least disposed to +be displeased with my expression of distrust. “Some time back an American +gentleman took up his abode for some weeks on the Chiaja at Naples, and in +the same house there lived an Italian, with whom, from frequently meeting +on the stairs and corridors, a sort of hat-touching acquaintance had grown +up. At length one day, as the American was passing hastily out, the +Italian accosted him with a courteous bow and smile, and said, ‘When will +it be your perfect convenience, signor, to repay me that little loan of +two hundred ducats it was my happy privilege to have lent you last month?’ +</p> +<p> +“The American, astounded as he was, had yet patience to inquire whether he +had not mistaken him for another. +</p> +<p> +“The other smiled somewhat reproachfully, as he said, ‘I trust, signor, +you are not disposed to ignore the obligation. You are the gentleman who +lives, I believe, on the second floor left?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Very true; I do live there, and I owe you nothing. I never borrowed a +carlino from you—I never spoke to you before; and if you ever take +the liberty to speak to me again, I’ll knock you down.’ +</p> +<p> +“The Italian smiled again, not so blandly, perhaps, but as significantly, +and saying, ‘We shall see,’ bowed and retired. +</p> +<p> +“The American thought little more of the matter till, going to the +Prefecture to obtain his visé for Borne, he discovered that his passport +had been stopped, and a detainer put upon him for this debt. He hastened +at once to his Minister, who referred him to the law-adviser of the +Legation for counsel. The man of law looked grave; he neither heeded the +angry denunciations of the enraged Yankee, nor his reiterated assurances +that the whole was an infamous fraud. He simply said, ‘The case is +difficult, but I will do my best.’ After the lapse of about a week, a +message came from the Prefect to say that the stranger’s passport was at +his service whenever he desired to have it. +</p> +<p> +“‘I knew it would be so!’ cried the American, as he came suddenly upon his +lawyer in the street. ‘I was certain that you were only exaggerating the +difficulty of a matter that must have been so simple; for, as I never owed +the money, there was no reason why I should pay it.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘It was a case for some address, notwithstanding,’ said the other, +shaking his head. +</p> +<p> +“‘Address! fiddle-stick! It was a plain matter of fact, and needed neither +skill nor cunning. You of course showed that this fellow was a stranger to +me—that we had never interchanged a word till the day he made this +rascally demand?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘I did nothing of the kind, sir. If I had put in so contemptible a plea, +you would have lost your cause. What I did was this: I asked what +testimony he could adduce as to the original loan, and he gave me the name +of one witness, a certain Count well known in this city, who was at +breakfast with him when you called to borrow this money, and who saw the +pieces counted out and placed in your hand.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘You denounced this fellow as a perjurer?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Far from it, sir. I respect the testimony of a man of station and +family, and I would not insult the feelings of the Count by daring to +impugn it; but as the plaintiff had called only one witness to the loan, I +produced two just as respectable, just as distinguished, who saw you repay +the debt! You are now free; and remember, sir, that wherever your +wanderings lead you, never cease to remember that, whatever be our +demerits at Naples, at least we can say with pride, The laws are +administered with equal justice to all men!’” + </p> +<p> +The entrance of the gendarme at this moment cut short the question I was +about to ask, whether I was to accept this story as a fact or as a +parable. +</p> +<p> +“Here he comes again. Only look at the misery in the fellow’s face! and +you see he has his orders evidently enough; and he dare not hurry me. I +think I’ll have a bath before I start.” + </p> +<p> +“It is scarcely fair, after all,” said I. “I suppose he wants to get back +to his one o’clock dinner.” + </p> +<p> +“I could no more feel for a gendarme than I could compassionate a +scorpion. Take the best-natured fellow in Europe—the most generous, +the most trustful, the most unsuspecting—make a brigadier of +Gendarmerie of him for three months, and he’ll come out scarcely a shade +brighter than the veriest rascal he has handcuffed! Do you know what our +friend yonder is at now?” + </p> +<p> +“No. He appears to be trying to take a stain out of one of his yellow +gauntlets.” + </p> +<p> +“No such thing. He is noting down your features—taking a written +portrait of you, as the man who sat at breakfast with me on a certain +morning of a certain month. Take my word for it, some day or other when +you purchase a hat too tall in the crown, or you are seen to wear your +whiskers a trifle too long or bushy, an intimation will reach you at your +hotel, that the Prefect would like to talk with you; the end of which will +be the question, ‘Whether there is not a friend you are most anxious to +meet in Switzerland, or if you have not an uncle impatient to see you at +Trieste?’ And yet,” added he, after a pause, “the Piedmontese are models +of liberality and legality in comparison with the officials in the south. +In Sicily, for instance, the laws are more corruptly administered than in +Turkey. I’ll tell you a case, which was, however, more absurd than +anything else. An English official, well known at Messina, and on the most +intimate terms with the Prefect, came back from a short shooting-excursion +he had made into the interior, half frantic with the insolence of the +servants at a certain inn. The proprietor was absent, and the waiter and +the cook—not caring, perhaps, to be disturbed for a single traveller—had +first refused flatly to admit him; and afterwards, when he had obtained +entrance, treated him to the worst of food, intimating at the same time it +was better than he was used to, and plainly giving him to understand that +on the very slightest provocation they were prepared to give him a sound +thrashing. Boiling over with passion, he got back to Messina, and hastened +to recount his misfortunes to his friend in power. +</p> +<p> +“‘Where did it happen?’ asked the hard-worked Prefect, with folly enough +on his hands without having to deal with the sorrows of Great Britons. +</p> +<p> +“‘At Spalla deMonte.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘When?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘On Wednesday last, the 23d.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘What do you want me to do with them?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘To punish them, of course.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘How—in what way?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘How do I know? Send them to jail.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘For how long?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘A month if you can—a fortnight at least.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘What are the names?’ asked the Prefect, who all this time continued to +write, filling up certain blanks in some printed formula before him. +</p> +<p> +“‘How should I know their names? I can only say that one was the cook, the +other the waiter.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘There!’ said the Prefect, tossing two sheets of printed and written-over +paper towards him—‘there! tell the landlord to fill in the fellows’ +names and surnames, and send that document to the Podesta. They shall have +four weeks, and with hard labour.’ +</p> +<p> +“The Englishman went his way rejoicing. He despatched the missive, and +felt his injuries were avenged. +</p> +<p> +“Two days after, however, a friend dropped in, and in the course of +conversation mentioned that he had just come from Spalla de Monte, where +he had dined so well and met such an intelligent waiter; ‘which, I own,’ +said he, ‘surprised me, for I had heard of their having insulted some +traveller last week very grossly.’ +</p> +<p> +“The Englishman hurried off to the Prefecture. ‘We are outraged, insulted, +laughed at!’ cried he: ‘those fellows you ordered to prison are at large. +They mock your authority and despise it.’ +</p> +<p> +“A mounted messenger was sent off at speed to bring up the landlord to +Messina, and he appeared the next morning, pale with fear and trembling. +He owned that the Prefect’s order had duly reached him, that he had +understood it thoroughly; ‘but, Eccellenza,’ said he, crying, ‘it was the +shooting season; people were dropping in every day. Where was I to find a +cook or a waiter? I must have closed the house if I parted with them; so, +not to throw contempt on your worship’s order, I sent two of the stablemen +to jail in their place, and a deal of good it will do them.’” + </p> +<p> +While I was laughing heartily at this story, my companion turned towards +the gendarme and said, “Have you made a note of his teeth? you see they +are tolerably regular, but one slightly overlaps the other in front.” + </p> +<p> +“Signor Générale,” said the other, reddening, “I’ll make a note of <i>your</i> +tongue, which will do quite as well.” + </p> +<p> +“Bravo!” said the Garibaldian; “better said than I could have given you +credit for. I’ll not keep you any longer from your dinner. Will you bear +me company,” asked he of me, “as far as Chiavari? It’s a fine day, and we +shall have a pleasant drive.” + </p> +<p> +I agreed, and we started. +</p> +<p> +The road was interesting, the post-horses which we took at Borghetto went +well, and the cigars were good, and somehow we said very little to each +other as we went. +</p> +<p> +“This is the real way to travel,” said my companion; “a man to smoke with +and no bother of talking; there’s Chiavari in the hollow.” + </p> +<p> +I nodded, and never spoke. +</p> +<p> +“Are you inclined to come on to Genoa?” + </p> +<p> +“No.” + </p> +<p> +And soon after we parted—whether ever to meet again or not is not so +easy to say, nor of very much consequence to speculate on. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE ORGAN NUISANCE AND ITS REMEDY. +</h2> +<p> +There is scarcely any better measure of the amount of comfort a man enjoys +than in the sort of things of which he makes grievances. When the princess +in the Eastern story passed a restless night on account of the rumpled +rose-leaf she lay on, the inference is, that she was not, like another +character of fiction, accustomed to “lie upon straw.” + </p> +<p> +Thus thinking, I was led to speculate on what a happy people must inhabit +the British Islands, seeing the amount of indignation and newspaper wrath +bestowed upon what is called the Organ Nuisance. Now, granting that it is +not always agreeable to have a nasal version of the march in ‘William +Tell,’ ‘Home, sweet Home,’ or ‘La Donna è mobile,’ under one’s window at +meal-times, in the hours of work, or the darker hours of headache, surely +the nation which cries aloud over this as a national calamity must enjoy +no common share of Fortune’s favour, and have what the Yankees call a +“fine time” here below. +</p> +<p> +Scarcely a week, however, goes over without one of these persecutors of +British ears being brought up to justice, and some dreary penny-a-liner +appears to prosecute in the person of a gentleman of literary pursuits, +whose labours, like those of Mr Babbage, may be lost to the world, if the +law will not hunt down the organs, and cry “Tally high-ho” to the +“grinders.” + </p> +<p> +It might be grave matter of inquiry whether the passing annoyance of +‘Cherry ripe’ was not a smaller infliction than some of the tiresome +lucubrations it has helped to muddle; and I half fancy I’d as soon listen +to the thunder as drink the small beer it has soured into vinegar. +</p> +<p> +However, as the British Public is resolved on making it a grievance, and +as some distinguished statesman has deemed it worth his while to devise a +bill for its suppression, it is in vain to deny that the evil is one of +magnitude. England has declared she will not be ground down by the +Savoyard, and there is no more to be said of it. +</p> +<p> +A great authority in matters of evasion once protested that he would +engage to drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament that ever +was framed, and I believe him. So certain is language to be too wide or +too narrow—to embrace too much, and consequently fail in +distinctness, or to include too little, and so defeat the attempt to +particularise—that it does not call for more than an ordinary amount +of acuteness to detect the flaws of such legislation. Then, when it comes +to a discussion, and amendments are moved, and some honourable gentleman +suggests that after the word “Whereas” in section 93 the clause should run +“in no case, save in those to be hereafter specified,” &c., there +comes a degree of confusion and obscurity that invariably renders the +original parent of the measure unable to know his offspring, and probably +intently determined to destroy it. That in their eagerness for law-making +the context of these bills is occasionally overlooked, one may learn from +the case of an Irish measure where a fine was awarded as the punishment of +a particular misdemeanour, and the Act declared that one-half of the sum +should go to the county, one-half to the informer. Parliament, however, +altered the law, but overlooked the context. Imprisonment with hard labour +was decreed as the penalty of the offence, and the clause remained—“one-half +to the county, one-half to the informer.” + </p> +<p> +A Judge of no mean acuteness, the Chief Baron O’Grady, once declared, with +respect to an Act against sheep-stealing, that after two careful readings +he could not decide whether the penalties applied to the owner, of the +sheep, the thief, or the sheep itself, for that each interpretation might +be argumentatively sustained. +</p> +<p> +How will you suppress the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits of +a man’s domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his +area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the ‘Hat-catcher’s Daughter’ +because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by ‘Sich a +gettin’ up stairs’ because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long may +an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his barrels—the +dreariest of all discords? Can legislation determine how long or how loud +the grand chorus in ‘Nabucco’ should be performed? What endless litigation +will be instituted by any attempt to provide for all these and a score +more of similar casualties, not to speak of the insolent persecution that +may be practised by the performance of tunes of a party character. Fancy +Dr Wiseman composing a pastoral to the air of ‘Croppies, lie down,’ or the +Danish Minister writing a despatch to the inspiriting strains of +‘Schleswig-Holstein meer-umschlungen.’ There might come a time, too, when +‘Sie sollen ihm nicht haben’ might grate on a French ambassador’s ears. +Can your Act take cognisance of all these? +</p> +<p> +I see nothing but inextricable confusion in the attempt—confusion, +difficulty, and defeat. There will be an Act, and an Act to amend that +Act, and another Act to alter so much of such an Act, and then a final Act +to repeal them all; so that at last the mover of a bill on the subject +will be the greatest “organ nuisance” that the world has yet heard of. +</p> +<p> +It was “much reflecting” over these things, as my Lord Brougham says, that +I sauntered along the Riviera from Genoa, and came to the little town of +Chiavari, with its long sweep of yellow beach in front and its glorious +grove of orange-trees behind—sure, whether the breeze came from land +or sea, to inhale health and perfume. There is a wide old Piazza in the +centre of the town, with a strange, dreary sort of inn with a low-arched +entrance, under whose shade sit certain dignitaries of the place of an +evening, sipping their coffee and talking over what they imagine to be the +last news of the day. From these “Conscript Fathers” I learned that +Chiavari is the native place of the barrel-organ, that from this little +town go forth to all the dwellers in remotest lands the grinders of the +many-cylindered torment, the persecutor of the prose-writer, the curse of +him who calculates. Just as the valleys of Savoy supply white-mice men, +and Lucca produces image-carriers, so does Chiavari yield its special +product, the organ-grinder. Other towns, in their ambitions, have +attempted the “industry,” but they have egregiously failed; and Chiavari +remains as distinctive in its product as Spitalfields for its shawls, or +Dresden for its china. Whether there may be some peculiarity in the biceps +of the Chiavarian, or some ulnar development which imparts power to his +performance, I know not. I am forced to own that I have failed to discover +to what circumstance or from what quality this excellence is derivable; +but there is the fact, warranted and confirmed by a statistical return, +that but for Chiavari we should have no barrel-organs. +</p> +<p> +“Never imagine,” said a wise prelate, “that you will root Popery out of +England till you destroy Oxford. If you want to get rid of the crows, you +must pull down the rookery.” The words of wisdom flashed suddenly over my +mind as I walked across the silent Piazza at midnight; and I exclaimed—“Yes! +here is the true remedy for the evil. With two hours of a gunboat and four +small Armstrongs the thing is done; batter down Chiavari, and Bab-bage +will bless you with his last breath. Pull down the cookery, and crush the +young rooks in the ruins. Smash the cradle and the babe within it, and you +need not fear the man!” + </p> +<p> +There is a grand justice in the conception that is highly elevating. There +is something eminently fine in making Chiavari, like the Cities of the +Plain, a monument over its own iniquity. Leave not one stone upon another +of it, and there will be peace in our homes and stillness in our streets. +No more shall the black-bearded tormentor terrorise over Baker Street, or +lord it in the Edgeware Road. +</p> +<p> +Commander Snort of the Sneezer will in a brief forenoon emancipate not +only Europe and America, but the dweller beyond Jordan and the inhabitant +of the diggings by Bendigo. Lay Chiavari in ashes, and you will no longer +need Inspector D, nor ask aid from the head-office. Here is what the age +especially worships, a remedy combining cheapness with efficiency. It may +be said that we have no more right to destroy Chiavari than Kagosima, but +that question is at least debatable. Are not the headaches of tens of +thousands of more avail than the head of one? What becomes of that noble +principle, the greatest happiness of the greatest number? The Italians, +too, might object: true, but they are neither Americans nor French. They +come into the category of states that may be bullied. The countries which +have an extended seaboard and weak naval armaments are like people with a +large glass frontage and no shutters. There is nothing to prevent us +shying a stone at the Italian window as we pass up to Constantinople, even +though we run away afterwards. I repeat, therefore, the plan is feasible. +As to its cheapness, it would not cost a tithe of what we spent in +destroying the tea-tray fortifications of Satsuma; and as we have a +classic turn for monuments, a pyramid of barrel-organs in Charing Cross +might record to a late posterity the capture of Chiavari. +</p> +<p> +I am not without a certain sort of self-reproach in all this. I feel it is +a weakness perhaps, but I feel that we are all of us too hard on these +organ fellows—for, after all, are they not, in a certain sense, the +type and embodiment of our age? Is not repetition, reiteration, our +boldest characteristic? Is there, I ask, such a “Grind” in the world as +Locke King, and his motion for Reform? What do you say to “Rest and be +thankful,” and, above all, what to the “Peace-at-any-price people”? +</p> +<p> +Is ‘Cherry ripe’ more wearisome than these? Would all Chiavari assembled +on Wimbledon make up a drearier discord than a ministerial explanation? In +all your experience of bad music, do you know anything to equal a Foreign +Office despatch? and we are without a remedy against these. Bring up John +Bright to-morrow for incessantly annoying the neighbourhood of Birmingham, +by insane accusations against his own country and laudations of America, +and I doubt if you could find a magistrate on the bench to commit him; and +will you tell me that the droning whine of ‘Garibaldi’s March’ is worse +than this? As to the <i>Civis Romanus</i> cant, it is too painful to dwell +on, now that we are derided, ridiculed, and sneered at from Stockholm to +Stamboul. Like Canning’s philanthropist, we have been asking every one for +his story; never was there a soul so full of sympathy for sorrow. We have +heard the tale of Italy, the sufferings of the Confederates, the crying +wrongs of Poland, and the still more cruel, because less provoked, trials +of Denmark. We have thrown up hands and eyes—sighed, groaned, wept; +we have even denounced the ill-doers, and said, What a terrible +retribution awaited them! but, like our great prototype, when asked for +assistance, we have said, +</p> +<p> +“I’ll see you ——— first.” + </p> +<p> +Let us be merciful, therefore, and think twice before we batter down +Chiavari. The organ nuisance is a bore, no doubt; but what are the most +droning ditties that ever addled a weary head, compared to the tiresome +grind of British moral assistance, and the greatness of that <i>Civis +Romanus</i> who hugs his own importance and helps nobody? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +R. N. F. THE GREAT CHEVALIER D’INDUSTRIE OF OUR DAY. +</h2> +<p> +I was struck the other day by an account of an application made to the +Lord Mayor of London by a country clergyman, to give, as a warning to +others, publicity to a letter he had just received from the East. The +clergyman, it seems, had advertised in the ‘Times’ for pupils, and gave +for address a certain letter of the Greek alphabet. To this address there +came in due time an answer from a gentleman, dated Constantinople, stating +that he was an Anglo-Indian on his way to England, to place his two sons +in an educational establishment; but that having, by an excursion to +Jerusalem, exhausted his immediate resources, he was obliged to defer the +prosecution of his journey till the arrival of some funds he expected from +India—certain to arrive in a month or two. Not wishing, however, to +delay the execution of his project, and being satisfied with the promises +held forth by the advertiser, he purposed placing his sons under his care, +and to do so, desired that forty pounds might be remitted him at once, to +pay his journey to England, for which convenience he, the writer, would +not alone be obliged, but also extend his patronage to the lender, by +recommending him to his friend Sir Hugh Rose, who was himself desirous of +sending his sons to be educated in England. The address of a banker was +given to whom the money should be remitted, and an immediate reply +requested, or “application should be made in some other quarter.” + </p> +<p> +Now, the clergyman did not answer this strange appeal, but he inserted +another advertisement, changing, however, the symbol by which he was to be +addressed, and appearing in this way to be a different person. To this new +address there came another letter, perfectly identical in style and +matter: the only change was, that the writer was now at the Hôtel de la +Reine d’Angleterre at Buda; but all the former pledges of future +protection were renewed, as well as the request for a prompt reply, or +“application will be made in another quarter.” + </p> +<p> +The clergyman very properly laid the matter before the Lord Mayor, who, +with equal propriety, stamped the attempt as the device of a swindler, +against which publicity in the newspapers was the best precaution. The +strangest thing of all, however, was, that nobody appeared to know the +offender; nor was there in the ‘Times,’ or in the other newspapers where +the circumstances were detailed, one single surmise as to the identity of +this ingenious individual. It is the more singular, since this man is a +specialty—an actual personification of some of the very subtlest +rogueries of the age we live in! +</p> +<p> +If any of my readers can recall a very remarkable exposure the ‘Times’ +newspaper made some ten or twelve years ago, of a most shameful fraud +practised upon governesses, by which they were induced to deposit a sum +equivalent to their travelling expenses from England to some town on the +Continent, as a guarantee to the employer, they will have discovered the +gentleman with the two sons to be educated—the traveller in Syria, +the friend of Sir Hugh Rose, the Anglo-Indian who expects eight hundred +pounds in two months, but has a present and pressing necessity for forty. +</p> +<p> +The governess fraud was ingenious. It was done in this way: An +advertisement appeared in the ‘Times,’ setting forth that an English +gentleman, travelling with his family abroad, wanted a governess—the +conditions liberal, the requirements of a high order. The family in +question, who mixed with the very best society on the Continent, required +that the governess should be a lady of accomplished manners, and one in +every respect qualified for that world of fashion to which she would be +introduced as a member of the advertiser’s family. The advertiser, +however, found that all the English ladies who had hitherto filled this +situation in his family had, through the facilities thus presented them of +entrance into life, made very advantageous marriages; and to protect +himself against the loss entailed by the frequent call on him for +travelling expenses—bringing out new candidates for the hands of +princes and grand-dukes—he proposed that the accepted governess +should deposit with him a sum—say fifty pounds—equivalent to +the charge of the journey; and which, if she married, should be +confiscated to the benefit of her employer. +</p> +<p> +The scheme was very ingenious; it was, in fact, a lottery in which you +only paid for your ticket when you had drawn a prize. Till the lucky +number turned up, you never parted with your money. Was there ever any +such bribe held forth to a generation of unmarried and marriageable women? +There was everything that could captivate the mind: the tour on the +Continent—the family who loved society and shared it so generously—the +father so parental in his kindness, and who evidently gave the governess +the benediction of a parent on the day she may have married the count; and +all secured for what—for fifty pounds? No; but for the deposit, the +mere storing up of fifty pounds in a strong box; for if, after two years, +the lady neither married nor wished to remain, she could claim her money +and go her way. +</p> +<p> +The success was immense; and as the advertiser wrote replies from +different towns to different individuals, governesses arrived at Brussels, +at Coblentz, at Frankfort, at Mayence, at Munich, at Nice—and heaven +knows where besides—whose deposits were lodged in the hands of N. F. +That ingenious gentleman straightway departed, and was no more seen, and +only heard of when the distress and misery of these unhappy ladies had +found their way to the public press. The ‘Times,’ with all that ability +and energy it knows how to employ, took the matter up, published some of +the statements—very painful and pathetic they were—of the +unfortunate victims of this fraud, and gave more than one “leader” to its +exposure. Nor was the Government wanting in proper activity. Orders were +sent out from the Foreign Office to the different legations and consulates +abroad, to warn the police in the several districts against the +machinations of this artful scoundrel, should he chance to be in their +neighbourhood. Even more distinct instructions were sent out to certain +legations, by which R. N. F. could be arrested on charges that would at +least secure his detention till the law officers had declared what steps +could be taken in his behalf. It was not the age of photography, but a +very accurate description of the man’s appearance and address was +furnished, and his lofty stature, broad chest, burly look, and bushy +whiskers—a shade between red and auburn—were all duly posted +in each Chancellerie of the Continent. +</p> +<p> +For a while it seemed as if he lived in retirement—his late success +enabled this to be an “elegant retirement”—and it is said that he +passed it on the Lake of Como, in a villa near that of the once Queen +Caroline. There are traditions of a distinguished stranger—a man of +rank and a man of letters—who lived there estranged from all the +world, and deeply engaged in the education of his two sons. One of these +youths, however, not responding to all this parental devotion, involved +himself in some scrape, fled from his father’s roof, and escaped into +Switzerland. N. F., as soon as he could rally from the first shock of the +news, hastened after, to bring him back, borrowing a carriage from a +neighbouring nobleman in his haste. With this he crossed the frontier at +Chiasso, but never to come back again. The coachman, indeed, brought +tidings of the sale of the equipage, which the illustrious stranger had +disposed of, thus quitting a neighbourhood he could only associate with a +sorrowful past, and a considerable number of debts into the bargain. +Another blank occurs here in history, which autobiography alone perhaps +could fill. It would be unfair and un-philosophical to suppose that +because we cannot trace him he was inactive: we might as reasonably imply +that the moon ceased to move when we lost sight of her. At all events, +towards the end of autumn of that last year of the war in the Crimea, a +stout, well-dressed, portly man, with an air of considerable assurance, +swaggered into the Chancellerie of her Majesty’s Legation at Munich, +notwithstanding the representations of the porter, who would, if he had +dared, have denied him admittance, and asked, in a voice of authority, if +there were no letters there for Captain F. The gentleman to whom the +question was addressed was an attaché of the Legation, and at that time in +“charge” of the mission, the Minister being absent. Though young in years, +F. could scarcely, in the length and breadth of Europe, have fallen upon +one with a more thorough insight into every phase and form of those +mysteries by which the F. category of men exist. Mr L. was an actual +amateur in this way, and was no more the man to be angry with F. for being +a swindler, than with Ristori for being Medea or Macready being Macbeth. +Not that he had the slightest suspicion at the time of F.‘s quality, as he +assured him that there were no letters for that name. +</p> +<p> +“How provoking!” said the Captain, as he bit his lip. “They will be so +impatient in England,” muttered he to himself, “and I know Sidney Herbert +is sure to blame <i>me</i>.” Then he added aloud, “I am at a dead-lock +here. I have come from the Crimea with despatches, and expected to find +money here to carry me on to England; and these stupid people at the War +Office have forgotten all about it. Is it not enough to provoke a saint?” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t know; I never was a saint,” said the impassive attaché. +</p> +<p> +“Well, it’s trying to a sinner,” said F., with a slight laugh; for he was +one of those happy-natured dogs who are not indifferent to the absurd side +of even their own mishaps. “How long does the post take to England?” + </p> +<p> +“Three days.” + </p> +<p> +“And three back—that makes six; a week—an entire week.” + </p> +<p> +“Omitting Sunday,” said the grave attaché, who really felt an interest in +the other’s dilemma. +</p> +<p> +“All I can say is, it was no fault of mine,” cried F., after a moment. “If +I am detained here through their negligence, they must make the best +excuse they can. Have you got a cigar?” This was said with his eyes fixed +on a roll of Cubans on the table. +</p> +<p> +“Take one,” said the other. +</p> +<p> +“Thanks,” said F., as he selected three. “I’ll drop in to-morrow, and hope +to have better luck.” + </p> +<p> +“How much money do you want?” asked Mr L. +</p> +<p> +“Enough to carry me to London.” + </p> +<p> +“How much is that?” + </p> +<p> +“Let me see. Strasbourg—Paris, a day at Paris; Cowley might detain +me two days: fifteen or twenty pounds would do it amply.” + </p> +<p> +“You shall have it.” + </p> +<p> +“All right,” said F., who walked to the fire, and, lighting his cigar, +smoked away; while the other took some notes from a table-drawer and +counted them. +</p> +<p> +“Shall I give you a formal receipt for this?” asked F. +</p> +<p> +“You can tell them at the Office,” said L., as he dipped his pen into the +ink and continued the work he had been previously engaged in. F. said a +few civil words—the offhand gratitude of a man who was fully as much +in the habit of bestowing as of receiving favours, and withdrew. L. +scarcely noticed his departure; he was deep in his despatch, and wrote on. +At length he came to the happy landing-place, that spot of rest for the +weary foot—“I have the honour to be, my Lord,” and he arose and +stood at the fire. +</p> +<p> +As L. smoked his cigar he reflected, and as he reflected he remembered; +and, to refresh his memory, he took out some papers from a pigeon-hole, +and at last finding what he sought, sat down to read it. The document was +a despatch, dated a couple of years back, instructing H.M.‘s +representative at the Court of Munich to secure the person of a certain N. +F., and hold him in durance till application should be made to the +Bavarian Government for his extradition and conveyance to England. Then +followed a very accurate description of the individual—his height, +age, general looks, voice, and manner—every detail of which L. now +saw closely tallied with the appearance of his late visitor. +</p> +<p> +He pondered for a while over the paper, and then looked at his watch. It +was five o’clock! The first train to Augsburg was to start at six. There +was little time, consequently, to take the steps necessary to arrest a +person on suspicion; for he should first of all have to communicate with +the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who should afterwards back his +application to the Prefect of Police. The case was one for detail, and for +what the Germans insist upon, much writing—and there was very little +time to do it in. L., however, was not one to be easily defeated. +</p> +<p> +If baffled in one road, he usually found out another. He therefore wrote a +brief note to the Minister, stating that he might require his assistance +at a later hour of the evening, and at a time not usually official. This +done, he despatched another note to Captain E. F., saying familiarly it +was scarcely worth while trying to catch the mail-train that night, and +that perhaps instead he would come over and take a <i>tétè-à-tête</i> +dinner with him at the Legation. +</p> +<p> +F. was overjoyed as he read it! No man ever felt a higher pleasure in good +company, nor knew better how to make it profitable. If he had been asked +to choose, he would infinitely rather have had the invitation to dine than +the twenty pounds he had pocketed in the morning. The cognate men of the +world—and all members of the diplomatic career are to a certain +extent in this category—were in F.‘s estimation the “trump cards” of +the pack, with which he could “score tricks” innumerable, and so he +accepted at once; and, in a very few minutes after his acceptance, made +his appearance in a correct dinner-dress and a most unexceptionable white +tie. +</p> +<p> +“Couldn’t refuse that pleasant offer of yours, L.” (he was familiar at +once, and called him L.), “and here I am!” said he, as he threw himself +into an easy-chair with all the bland satisfaction of one who looked +forward to a good dinner and a very enjoyable evening. +</p> +<p> +“I am happy to have secured you,” said L., with a little laugh to himself +at the epigram of his phrase. “Do you like caviar?” + </p> +<p> +“Delight in it!” + </p> +<p> +“I have just got some fresh from St Petersburg, and our cook here is +rather successful in his caviar soup. We have a red trout from the <i>Tegen +See</i>, a saddle of Tyrol mutton, and a pheasant—<i>voilà votre +diner!</i> but I can promise you a more liberal <i>carte</i> in +drinkables; just say what you like in the way of wine!” + </p> +<p> +F.‘s face beamed over with ecstasy. It was one of the grand moments of his +life; and if he could, hungry as he was, he would have prolonged it! To be +there the guest of her Majesty’s mission; to know, to feel, that the arms +of England were over the door! that he was to be waited on by flunkies in +the livery of the Legation, fed by the cook who had ministered to official +palates, his glass filled with wine from the cellar of him who represented +royalty! These were very glorious imaginings; and little wonder that F., +whose whole life was a Poem in its way, should feel that they almost +overcame him. In fact, like the woman in the nursery song, he was ready to +exclaim, “This is none of me!” but still there were abundant evidences +around him that all was actual, positive, and real. +</p> +<p> +“By the way,” said L., in a light, careless way, “did you ever in your +wanderings chance upon a namesake of yours, only that he interpolates +another Christian name, and calls himself R. Napoleon F.?” + </p> +<p> +The stranger started: the fresh, ruddy glow of his cheek gave way to a +sickly yellow, and, rising from his chair, he said, “Do you mean to +‘split’ on me, sir?” + </p> +<p> +“I’m afraid, F.,” said the other, jauntily, “the thing looks ugly. You are +R. N. F.!” + </p> +<p> +“And are you, sir, such a scoundrel—such an assassin—as to ask +a man to your table in order to betray him?” + </p> +<p> +“These are strong epithets, F., and I’ll not discuss them; but if you ask, +Are you going to dine here today? I’d say, No. And if you should ask, +Where are, you likely to pass the evening? I’d hint, In the city jail.” + </p> +<p> +At this F. lost all command over himself, and broke out into a torrent of +the wildest abuse. He was strong of epithets, and did not spare them. He +stormed, he swore, he threatened, he vociferated; but L., imperturbable +throughout all, only interposed with an occasional mild remonstrance—a +subdued hint—that his language was less than polite or +parliamentary. At length the door opened, two gendarmes appeared, and N. +F. was consigned to their hands and removed. +</p> +<p> +The accusations against him were manifold; from before and since the day +of the governesses, he had been living a life of dishonesty and fraud. +German law proceedings are not characterised by any rash impetuosity; the +initial steps in F.‘s case took about eighteen months, during which he +remained a prisoner. At the end of this time the judges discovered some +informality in his committal; and as L. was absent from Munich, and no one +at the Legation much interested in the case, the man was liberated on +signing a declaration—to which Bavarian authorities, it would seem, +attach value—that he was “a rogue and a vagabond;” confessions which +the Captain possibly deemed as absurd an act of “surplusage” as though he +were to give a written declaration that he was a vertebrated animal and a +biped. +</p> +<p> +He went forth once more, and, difficult as it appears to the intelligence +of honest and commonplace folk, he went forth to prosper and live +luxuriously—so gullible is the world, so ready and eager to be +cheated and deceived. Sir Edward Lytton has somewhere declared that a +single number of the ‘Times’ newspaper, taken at random, would be the very +best and most complete picture of our daily life—the fullest +exponent of our notions, wants, wishes, and aspirations. Not a hope, nor +fear, nor prejudice—not a particle of our blind trustfulness, or of +our as blind unbelief, that would not find its reflex in the broadsheet. +R. N. F. had arrived at the same conclusion, only in a more limited sense. +The advertisement columns were all to him. What cared he for foreign wars, +or the state of the Funds? as little did he find interest in railway +intelligence, or “our own correspondent.” What he wanted was, the people +who inquired after a missing relative—a long-lost son or brother, +who was supposed to have died in the Mauritius or Mexico: an affectionate +mother who desired tidings as to the burial-place of a certain James or +John, who had been travelling in a particular year in the south of Spain: +an inquirer for the will of Paul somebody: or any one who could supply +evidence as to the marriage of Sarah Meekins <i>alias</i> Crouther, +supposed to have been celebrated before her Majesty’s Vice-Consul at +Kooroobakaboo—these were the paragraphs that touched him. +</p> +<p> +Never was there such a union of intelligence and sympathy as in him! He +knew everybody, and seemed not alone to have been known to, but actually +beloved by, every one. It was in <i>his</i> arms poor Joe died at Aden. <i>He</i> +gave away Maria at Tunis. He followed Tom to his grave at Corfu; and he +was the mysterious stranger who, on board the P. and O. boat, offered his +purse to Edward, and was almost offended at being denied. The way in which +this man tracked the stories of families through the few lines of a +newspaper advertisement was positively marvellous. Whatever was wanting in +the way of evidence of this, or clue to that, came at once into his +attributions. +</p> +<p> +A couple of years ago, an English lady, the wife of a clergyman, passed a +winter at Rome with her daughter, and in the mixed society of that capital +made acquaintance with a Polish Count of most charming manners and +fascinating address. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and ended in +an attachment which led to the marriage of the young lady with the +distinguished exile. +</p> +<p> +On arriving in England, however, it was discovered that the accomplished +Count was a common soldier, and a deserter from the Prussian army; and +means were accordingly had recourse to in order to obtain a divorce, and +the breach of a marriage accomplished under a fraudulent representation. +While the proceedings were but in the initiative, there came a letter from +Oneglia, near Nice, to the afflicted mother of the young lady, recalling +to her mind the elderly gentleman with the blue spectacles who usually sat +next her at the English Church at Rome. He was the writer of the present +letter, who, in turning over the columns of the ‘Times’ read the +melancholy story of her daughter’s betrayal and misery. By one of those +fortunate accidents more frequent in novels than in life, he had the means +of befriending her, and very probably of rescuing her from her present +calamity. He, the writer, had actually been present at the wedding, and as +a witness had signed the marriage-certificate of that same <i>soi-disant</i> +Count Stanislaus Sobieski Something-or-other, at Lemberg, in the year ‘49, +and knew that the unhappy but deserted wife was yet living. A certain +momentary pressure of money prevented his at once coming to England to +testify to this fact; but if a small sum, sufficient to pay a little +balance he owed his innkeeper and wherewithal to make his journey to +England, were forwarded to the address of Frederick Brooks, Esq., or +lodged to his account at the Bank of French & Co., Florence, he would +at once hasten to London and depose formally to every fact he had stated. +By the merest accident I myself saw this letter, which the lady had, for +more accurate information about the writer, sent to the banker at +Florence, and in an instant I detected the fine Roman hand of R. N. F. It +is needless to say that this shot went wide of the mark. +</p> +<p> +But that this fellow has lived for upwards of twenty years, travelling the +Continent in every direction, eating and drinking at the best hotels, +frequenting theatres, cafés, and public gardens, denying himself nothing, +is surely a shame and a disgrace to the police of Europe, which has been +usually satisfied to pass him over a frontier, and suffer him to continue +his depredations on the citizens of another state. Of the obloquy he has +brought upon his own country I do not speak. We must, I take it, have our +scoundrels like other people; the only great grievance here is, that the +fellow’s ubiquity is such that it is hard to believe that the swindler who +walked off with the five watches from Hamburg is the same who, in less +than eight days afterwards, borrowed fifty ducats from a waiter at Naples, +and “bolted.” + </p> +<p> +Of late I have observed he has dropped his second <i>prénom</i> of +Napoleon, and does not call himself by it. There is perhaps in this +omission a delicate forbearance, a sense of refined deference to the other +bearer of that name, whom he recognises as his master. +</p> +<p> +In the ingenuity of his manifold devices even religion has not escaped +him, and it would be impossible to count how often he has left the +“Establishment” for Rome, been converted, reconverted, reconciled, and +brought home again—always, be it noted, at the special charge of so +much money from the Church Fund, or a subscription from the faithful, ever +zealous and eager to assist a really devout and truly sincere convert! +</p> +<p> +That this man is an aspiring and ambitious vagabond may be seen in the +occasional raids he makes into the very best society, without having, at +least to ordinary eyes, anything to obtain in these ventures, beyond the +triumph of seeing himself where exposure and detection would be certain to +be followed by the most condign punishment. At Rome, for instance—how, +I cannot say—he obtained admission to the Duc de Grammont’s +receptions; and at Florence, under the pretext of being a proprietor, and +“a most influential” one, of the ‘Times,’ he breakfasted, by special +invitation, with Baron Ricasoli, and had a long and most interesting +conversation with him as to the conditions—of course political—on +which he would consent to support Italian unity. These must have been done +in pure levity; they were imaginative excursions, thrown off in the spirit +of those fanciful variations great violinists will now and then indulge +in, as though to say, “Is there a path too intricate for me to thread, is +there a pinnacle too fine for me to balance on?” + </p> +<p> +A great deal of this fellow’s long impunity results from the shame men +feel in confessing to have been “done” by him. Nobody likes the avowal, +acknowledging, as it does, a certain defect in discrimination, and a +natural reluctance to own to having been the dupe of one of the most +barefaced and vulgar rogues in Europe. +</p> +<p> +There is one circumstance in this case which might open a very curious +psychological question; it is this: F.‘s victims have not in general been +the frank, open, free-giving, or trustful class of men; on the contrary, +they have usually been close-fisted, cold, cautious people, who weigh +carefully what they do, and are rarely the dupes of their own +impulsiveness. F. is an Irishman, and yet his successes have been far more +with English—ay, even with Scotchmen—than with his own +countrymen. +</p> +<p> +In part this may be accounted for by the fact that F. did not usually +present himself as one in utter want and completely destitute; his appeal +for money was generally made on the ground of some speculation that was to +repay the lender; it was because he knew “something to your advantage” + that he asked for that £10. He addressed himself, in consequence, to the +more mercantile spirit of a richer community—to those, in fact, who, +more conversant with trade, better understood the meaning of an +investment. +</p> +<p> +But there was another, and, as I take it, a stronger and less fallible +ground for success. This fellow has, what all Irishmen are more or less +gifted with, an immense amount of vitality, a quality which undeniably +makes a man companionable, however little there may be to our taste in his +manner, his education, or his bearing. This same vitality imparts itself +marvellously to the colder temperaments of others, and gives out its own +warmth to natures that never of themselves felt the glow of an impulse, or +the glorious furnace-heat of a rash action. +</p> +<p> +This was the magnetism he worked with. “Canny” Scotchmen and shrewd +Yankees—ay, even Swiss innkeepers—felt the touch of his +quality. There was, or there seemed to be, a geniality in the fellow that, +in its apparent contempt for all worldliness, threw men off their guard, +and it would have smacked of meanness to distrust a fellow so open and +unguarded. +</p> +<p> +Now Paddy has seen a good deal of this at home, and could no more be +humbugged by it than he could believe a potato to be a truffle. +</p> +<p> +F. was too perfect an artist ever to perform in an Irish part to an Irish +audience, and so he owes little or nothing to the land of his birth. +</p> +<p> +Apart from his unquestionable success, which of course settles the +question, I would not have called him a great performer—indeed, my +astonishment has always been how he succeeded, or with whom. +</p> +<p> +“Don’t tell me of Beresford’s blunders,” said the Great Duke after +Albuera. “Did he beat Soult? if so, he was a good officer.” + </p> +<p> +This man’s triumphs are some twenty odd years of expensive living, with +occasional excursions into good society. He wears broadcloth, and dines on +venison, when his legitimate costume had been the striped uniform of the +galleys, and his diet the black bread of a convict. +</p> +<p> +The injury these men do in life is not confined to the misery their +heartless frauds inflict, for the very humblest and poorest are often +their victims: they do worse, in the way they sow distrust and suspicion +of really deserving objects, in the pretext they afford the miserly man to +draw closer his purse-strings, and “not be imposed on;” and, worst of all, +in the ill repute they spread of a nation which, not attractive by the +graces of manner or the charms of a winning address, yet cherished the +thought that in truthfulness and fair dealing there was not one could +gainsay it. +</p> +<p> +As I write, I have just heard tidings of R. N. F. One of our most +distinguished travellers and discoverers, lately returning from Venice to +the South, passed the night at Padua, and met there what he described as +an Indian officer—Major Newton—who was travelling, he said, +with a nephew of Lord Palmer-ston’s. +</p> +<p> +The Major was a man fall of anecdote, and abounded in knowledge of people +and places; he had apparently been everywhere with everybody, and, with a +communicativeness not always met with in old soldiers, gave to the +stranger a rapid sketch of his own most adventurous life. As the evening +wore on, he told too how he was waiting there for a friend, a certain N. +F., who was no other than himself, the nephew of Lord Palmerston being +represented by his son, an apt youth, who has already given bright promise +of what his later years may develop. +</p> +<p> +N. F. retired to bed at last, so much overcome by brandy-and-water that my +informant escaped being asked for a loan, which I plainly see he would not +have had the fortitude to have refused; and the following morning he +started so early that N. F., wide awake as he usually is, was not vigilant +enough to have anticipated. +</p> +<p> +I hope these brief details, <i>pour servir à l’histoire de Monsieur R. N. +F.</i>, may save some kind-hearted traveller from the designs of a +thorough blackguard, and render his future machinations through the press +more difficult to effect and more certain of exposure. +</p> +<p> +I had scarcely finished this brief, imperfect sketch, when I read in +‘Galignani’ the following:— +</p> +<p> +“Swindling on the Continent.—A letter from Venice of March 29 gives +us the following piece of information which may still be of service to +some of our readers, though, from the fact with which it concludes, it +would seem that the proceedings, of the party have been brought to a +standstill, at least for some time. This is not, however, it may be +recollected, the first occasion we have had to bring the conduct of the +individual referred to under the notice of our readers for similar +practices:— +</p> +<p> +“‘I am informed that one Mr Newton, <i>alias</i> Neville, <i>alias</i> +Fane, and with a dozen other <i>aliases</i>, has been arrested at Padua +for swindling. This ubiquitous gentleman has been travelling for some +years at the expense of hotel-keepers, and other geese easily fleeced, on +the Continent In the year 1862, Mr Neville and his two sons made their +suspicious appearance at Venice, and they now, minus the younger son, have +visited Padua as Mr Robert N. Newton and son, taking up their residence at +the Stella d’Oro. They arrived without luggage and without money, both of +which had been lost in the Danube; but they expected remittances from +India! The obliging landlord lent money, purchased clothes, fed them +gloriously, and contrived, between the 8th Feb. and 25th of March, to +become the creditor of Newton and son for 1000 swanzig. The expenses +continued, but the remittances never came. The patient landlord began to +lose that virtue, and denounced these <i>aliases</i> as swindlers. The +police of Vienna, hearing of the event, sent information that these two +accommodating gentlemen had practised the victimising art for two months +in December last at the Hotel Regina Inghilterre, at Pesth, run up a +current account of 700 florins, and decamped; and a hotel-keeper +recognised the scamps as having re-resided at the Luna, in Venice, in +1862, and “plucked some profit from that pale-faced moon.” Mr Newton’s +handwriting proved him to be in 1863 one Major Fane, who had generously +proposed to bring all his family, consisting of ten persons, to pass the +winter at the Barbesi Hotel at Venice, if the proprietor would forward him +700 fr., as, owing to his wife’s prolonged residence at Rome and Naples, +he was short of money, which, however, he expected, would cease on the +arrival of supplies from Calcutta. These gentlemen are now in durance +vile, and there is no doubt but that this letter will lead to their +recognition by many other victims.’” + </p> +<p> +Let no sanguine enthusiast for the laws of property imagine, however, that +this great man’s career is now ended, and that R. N. F. will no more go +forth as of old to plunder and to rob. Imprisonment for debt is a grievous +violation of personal liberty certainly, but it is finite; and some fine +morning, when the lark is carolling high in heaven, and the bright +rivulets are laughing in the gay sunlight, R. N. F. will issue from his +dungeon to taste again the sweets of liberty, and to partake once more of +the fleshpots of some confiding landlord. F. is a man of great resources, +doubtless. When he repeats a part, he feels the same sort of repugnance +that Fechter would to giving a fiftieth representation of Hamlet, but he +would bow to the necessity which a clamorous public imposes, however his +own taste might rebel against the dreariness of the task. Still, I feel +assured that he will next appear in a new part. We shall hear of him—that +is certain. He will be in search of a lost will, by which he would inherit +millions, or a Salvator Rosa that he has been engaged to buy for the +Queen, or perhaps he will be a missionary to assist in that religious +movement now observable in Italy. How dare I presume, in my narrow +inventiveness, to suggest to such a master of the art as he is? I only +know that, whether he comes before the world as the friend of Sir Hugh +Rose, a proprietor of the ‘Times,’ the agent of Lord Palmerston, or a +recent convert from Popery, he will sustain his part admirably; and that +same world that he has duped, robbed, and swindled for more than a quarter +of a century will still feed and clothe him—still believe in the +luggage that never comes, and the remittance that will never turn up. +</p> +<p> +After all, the man must be a greater artist than I was willing to believe +him to be. He must be a deep student of the human heart—not, +perhaps, in its highest moods; and he must well understand how to touch +certain chords which give their response in unlimited confidence and long +credit. +</p> +<p> +No doubt there must be some wondrous fascination in these changeful +fortunes—these ups and downs of life—otherwise no man could +have gone, as he has, for nigh thirty years, hunted, badgered, insulted, +and imprisoned in almost every capital of Europe, and yet no sooner +liberated than, like a giant refreshed, he again returns to his old toil, +never weary wherever the bread of idleness can be eaten, and where a lie +will pay for his liquor. +</p> +<p> +Talk of novel-writers—this is the great master of fiction—the +man who brings the product of imagination to the real test of credibility—the +actual interest of his public. Let him fail in his description, his +narrative, the progress of his events, or their probability, and he is +ruined at once. He must not alone arrange the circumstances of his story, +but he must perform the hero, and that, too, as we saw lately at Padua, +without any adventitious aid of dress or costume. I can fancy what a sorry +figure some of our popular tale-writers would present if they had to +appeal to an innkeeper with this poor story of their luggage lost in the +Danube. What a contempt the rascal must have had for Italian notions of +geography, too, when he adopted a river so remote from where he stood! And +yet I’d swear he was as cool, as collected, and as self-sustained at that +moment, as ever was Mr Gladstone in the House as he rose to move a motion +of supply. +</p> +<p> +Well, he is in Padua now, doubtless dreaming of fresh conquests, and not +impossibly speculating on a world whose gullibility is indeed infinite, +and which actually seems to take the same pleasure in being cheated in +Fact as it does in being deceived in Fiction. Who knows if the time is not +coming when, instead of sending a box of new novels to the country, some +Mr Mudie will despatch one of these R. N. F. folk by a fast train, with a +line to say, “A great success: his Belgian rogueries most amusing; the +exploit at Madrid equal to anything in ‘Gil Bias’.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +GÀRIBÀLDI +</h2> +<p> +We had a very witty Judge in Ireland, who was not very scrupulous about +giving hard knocks to his brothers on the bench, and who, in delivering a +judgment in a cause, found that he was to give the casting-vote between +his two colleagues, who were diametrically opposed to each other, and who +had taken great pains to lay down the reasons for their several opinions +at considerable length. “It now comes to my turn,” said he, “to declare my +view of this case, and fortunately I can afford to be brief. I agree with +my brother B. from the irresistible force of the admirable argument of my +brother M.” + </p> +<p> +The story occurred to me as I thought over Garibaldi and the enthusiastic +reception you gave him in England; for I really felt, if it had not been +for Carlyle, I might have been a bit of a hero-worshipper myself The grand +frescoes in caricature of the popular historian have, however, given me a +hearty and wholesome disgust to the whole thing; not to say that, however +enthusiastic a man may feel about his idol, he must be sorely ashamed of +his fellow-worshippers. “Lie down with dogs, and you’ll get up with +fleas,” says an old Irish adage; but what, in the name of all entomology, +is a man to get up with who lies down with these votaries of Garibaldi? So +fine a fellow, and so mangy a following, it would be hard to find. The +opportunity for all the blatant balderdash of shopkeeping eloquence, of +that high “Falootin” style so popular over the Atlantic, of those +grand-sounding periods about freedom and love of country, was not to be +lost by a set of people who, in all their enthusiasm for Garibaldi, are +intently bent on making themselves foreground figures in the tableau that +should have been filled by himself alone. +</p> +<p> +“Sir Francis Burdett call <i>you</i> his friend!—as well call a Bug +his bedfellow!” said the sturdy old yeoman, whose racy English I should +like to borrow, to characterise the stupid incongruity between Garibaldi +and his worshippers. It is not easy to conceive anything finer, simpler, +more thoroughly unaffected, or more truly dignified, than the man himself. +His noble head; his clear, honest, brown eye; his finely-traced mouth, +beautiful as a woman’s, and only strung up to sternness when anything +ignoble or mean had outraged him; and, last of all, his voice contains a +fascination perfectly irresistible, allied, as you knew and felt these +graces were, with a thoroughly pure, untarnished nature. The true measure +of the man lies in the fact that, though his life has been a series of the +boldest and most daring achievements, his courage is about the very last +quality uppermost in your mind when you meet him. It is of the winning +softness of his look and manner, his kind thoughtfulness for others, his +sincere pity for all suffering, his gentleness, his modesty, his manly +sense of brotherhood with the very humblest of the men who have loved him, +that you think: these are the traits that throw all his heroism into +shadow; and all the glory of the conqueror pales before the simple virtues +of the man. +</p> +<p> +He never looked to more advantage than in that humble life of Caprera, +where people came and went—some, old and valued friends, whose +presence warmed up their host’s heart; others, mere passing acquaintances, +or, as it might be, not even that; worshippers or curiosity-seekers—living +where and how they could in that many-roomed small house; diving into the +kitchen to boil their coffee; sallying out to the garden to pluck their +radishes; down to the brook for a cress, or to the seaside to catch a +fish,—all more or less busy in the midst of a strange idleness; for +there was not—beyond providing for the mere wants of the day—anything +to be done. The soil would not yield anything. There was no cultivation +outside that little garden, where the grand old soldier delved, or rested +on his spade-handle as he turned his gaze over the sea, doubtless thinking +of the dear land beyond it. +</p> +<p> +At dinner—and what a strange meal it was—all met, full of the +little incidents of an uneventful day. The veriest trifles they were, but +of interest to those who listened, and to none more than Garibaldi +himself, who liked to hear who had been over to Maddalena, and what sport +they had; or whether Albanesi had taken any mullet, and who it was said he +could mend the boat? and who was to paint her? Not a word was spoken of +the political events of the world, and every mention of them was as +rigidly excluded as though a government spy had been seated at the table. +</p> +<p> +He rarely spoke himself, but was a good listener—not merely hearing +with attention, but showing, by an occasional suggestion or a hint, how +his mind speculated on the subject before him. If, however, led to speak +of himself or his exploits, the unaffected ease and simplicity of the man +became at once evident. Never, by any chance, would an expression escape +him that redounded to his own share in any achievement; without any +studied avoidance the matter would somehow escape, or, if accidentally +touched on, be done so very lightly as to make it appear of no moment +whatever. +</p> +<p> +To have done one-tenth of what Garibaldi has done, a man must necessarily +have thrown aside scruples which he would never have probably transgressed +in his ordinary life. He must have been often arbitrary, and sometimes +almost cruel; and yet, ask his followers, and they will tell you that +punishment scarcely existed in the force under his immediate command—that +the most hardened offender would have quailed more under a few stern words +of reproof from “the General” than from a sentence that sent him to a +prison. +</p> +<p> +That, to effect his purpose, he would lay hands on what he needed, not +recklessly or indifferently, but thoughtfully and doubtless regretfully, +we all know. I can remember an instance of this kind, related to me by a +British naval officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. “It was off +La Plata,” said my informant, “when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, that +the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small gun-brig +of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never harassed his men by exercises +of gunnery, and, indeed, whose ship was as free from any ‘beat to +quarters,’ or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though she +had been a floating chapel. +</p> +<p> +“Garibaldi came alongside me one day to say that he had learned the +Sardinian had several tons of powder on board, with an ample supply of +grape, shell, and canister, not to speak of twelve hundred stand of +admirable arms. ‘I want them all,’ said he; ‘my people are fighting with +staves and knives, and we are totally out of ammunition. I want them, and +he won’t let me have them.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘He could scarcely do so,’ said I, ‘seeing that they belong to his +Government, and are not in <i>his</i> hands to bestow.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘For that reason I must go and take them,’ said Garibaldi. ‘I mean to +board him this very night, and you’ll see if we do not replenish our +powder-flasks.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘In that case,’ said I, ‘I shall have to fire on you. It will be Piracy; +nothing else.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘You’ll not do so;’ said he, smiling. +</p> +<p> +“‘Yes, I promise you that I will. We are at peace and on good terms with +Sardinia, and I cannot behave other than as a friend to her ships of war.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘There’s no help for it, then,’ said Garibaldi, ‘if you see the thing in +that light:’ and good-humouredly quitted the subject, and soon after took +his leave.” + </p> +<p> +“And were you,” asked I of my informant, Captain S.——“were you +perfectly easy after that conversation? I mean, were you fully satisfied +that he would not attempt the matter in some other way?” + </p> +<p> +“Never more at ease in my life. I knew my man; and that, having left me +under the conviction he had abandoned the exploit, nothing on earth would +have tempted him to renew it in any shape.” + </p> +<p> +It might be a matter of great doubt whether any greater intellectual +ability would not have rather detracted from than increased Garibaldi’s +power as a popular leader. I myself feel assured that the simplicity, the +trustfulness, the implicit reliance on the goodness of a cause as a reason +for its success, are qualities which no mere mental superiority could +replace in popular estimation. It is actually Love that is the sentiment +the Italians have for him; and I have seen them, hard-featured, ay, and +hard-natured men, moved to tears as the litter on which Garibaldi lay +wounded was carried down to the place of embarkation. +</p> +<p> +Garibaldi has always been a thoughtful, silent, reflective man, not +communicative to others, or in any way expansive; and from these qualities +have come alike his successes and his failures. Of the conversations +reported of him by writers I do not believe a syllable. He speaks very +little; and, luckily for him, that little only with those on whose +integrity he can rely not to repeat him. +</p> +<p> +Cavour, who knew men thoroughly, and studied them just as closely as he +studied events, understood at once that Garibaldi was the man he wanted. +He needed one who should move the national heart—who, sprung from +the people himself, and imbued with all the instincts of his class, should +yet not dissever the cause of liberty from the cause of monarchy. To +attach Garibaldi to the throne was no hard task. The King, who led the van +of his army, was an idol made for such worship as Garibaldi’s. The monarch +who could carry a knapsack and a heavy rifle over the cliffs of Monte Rosa +from sunrise to sunset, and take his meal of hard bread before he “turned +in” at night in a shepherd’s shieling, was a King after the bold +buccaneer’s own heart. +</p> +<p> +To what end inveigh against the luxuries of a court, its wasteful +splendours, or its costly extravagance, with such an example? This +strong-sinewed, big-boned, unpoetical King has been the hardest nut ever +republicanism had to crack! +</p> +<p> +It might be possible to overrate the services Garibaldi has rendered to +Italy—it would be totally impossible to exaggerate those he has +rendered the Monarchy; and out of Garibaldi’s devotion to Victor Emmanuel +has sprung that hearty, honest, manly appreciation of the King which the +Italians unquestionably display. A merely political head of the State, +though he were gifted with the highest order of capacity, would have +disappeared altogether from view in the sun-splendour of Garibaldi’s +exploits; not so the King Victor Emmanuel, who only shone the brighter in +the reflected blaze of the hero who was so proud to serve him. +</p> +<p> +Yet for all that friendship, and all the acts that grew out of it, natural +and spontaneous as they are, one great mind was needed to guide, direct, +encourage, or restrain. It was Cavour who, behind the scenes, pulled all +the wires; and these heroes—heroes they were too—were but his +puppets. +</p> +<p> +Cavour died, and then came Aspromonte. +</p> +<p> +If any other man than Garibaldi had taken the present moment to make a +visit—an almost ostentatious visit—to Mazzini, it might be a +grave question how far all the warm enthusiasm of this popular reception +could be justified. Garibaldi is, however, the one man in Europe from whom +no one expects anything but impulsive action. It is in the very +unreflectiveness of his generosity that he is great. There has not been, I +am assured, for many years back, any very close or intimate friendship +between these two men; but it was quite enough that Mazzini was in trouble +and difficulty, to rally to his side that brave-hearted comrade who never +deserted his wounded. Nor is there in all Garibaldi’s character anything +finer or more exalted than the steadfast adherence he has ever shown to +his early friendships. No flatteries of the great—no blandishments +of courts and courtiers—none of those seductive influences which are +so apt to weave themselves into a man’s nature when surrounded by +continual homage and admiration—not any of these have corrupted that +pure and simple heart; and there is not a presence so exalted, nor a scene +of splendour so imposing, as could prevent Garibaldi from recognising with +eager delight any the very humblest companion that ever shared hardship +and danger beside him. +</p> +<p> +To have achieved his successes, a man must of necessity have rallied +around him many besides enthusiasts of the cause; he must have recruited +amongst men of broken fortunes—reckless, lawless fellows, who +accepted the buccaneer’s life as a means of wiping off old scores with +that old world “that would have none of them.” It was not amidst the +orderly, the soberly-trained, and well-to-do that he could seek for +followers. And what praise is too great for him who could so inspire this +mass, heaving with passion as it was, with his own noble sentiments, and +make them feel that the work before them—a nation’s regeneration—was +a task too high and too holy to be accomplished by unclean hands? Can any +eulogy exaggerate the services of a man who could so magnetise his +fellow-men as to associate them at once with his nobility of soul, and +elevate them to a standard little short of his own? That he <i>did</i> do +this we have the proof. Pillage was almost unknown amongst the +Garibaldians; and these famished, ill-clad, shoeless men marched on from +battle to battle with scarcely an instance of crime that called for the +interference of military law. +</p> +<p> +Where is the General who could boast of doing as much? Where is the leader +who could be bold enough to give such a pledge for his followers? Is there +an army in Europe—in the world—for whom as much could be said? +</p> +<p> +All honour, therefore, to the man—not whose example only, but whose +very contact suggests high intent and noble action. All honour to him who +brings to a great cause, not alone the dazzling splendour of heroism, but +the more enduring brightness of a pure and unsullied integrity! +</p> +<p> +Such a man may be misled; he can never be corrupted. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A NEW INVESTMENT. +</h2> +<p> +I am not so sure how far we ought to be grateful for it, but assuredly the +fact is so, that nothing has so much tended to show the world with what +little wisdom it is governed than the Telegraph. It is not merely that +cabinets are no longer the sole possessors of early intelligence, though +this alone was once a very great privilege; and there is no +over-estimating the power conferred by the exclusive possession of a piece +of important news—a battle won or lost, the outbreak of a +revolution, the overthrow of a throne—even for a few hours before it +became the property of the public. The telegraph, however, is the great +disenchanter. The misty uncertainty, the cloud-like indistinctness that +used of old to envelop all ministerial action, converting Downing Street +into a sort of Olympus, and making a small mythology out of +Precis-writers, is all gone, all dispersed. Three or four cold hard lines, +thin and terse as the wire that conveyed them, are sworn enemies to all +style, and especially to all the evasive cajoleries of those dissolving +views of events diplomacy loves to revel in. What becomes of the graceful +drapery in which statesmen used to clothe the great facts of the world, +when a simple despatch, “fifteen words, exclusive of the address,” tells +the whole story? and when we have read that “the insurgents are triumphant +everywhere, the king left the capital at four o’clock, a provisional +government was proclaimed this morning,” and suchlike, what do we care for +the sonorous periods in which official priestcraft chants the downfall of +a dynasty? +</p> +<p> +The great stronghold of statecraft was, however, Speculation—I mean +that half-prophetic view of events which we always conceded to those who +looked over the world from a higher window than ourselves. What has become +of this now? Who so bold as to predict what, while he is yet speaking, may +be contradicted? who is there hardy enough to forecast what the events of +the last half-hour may have falsified, and five minutes more will serve to +publish to the whole world? +</p> +<p> +It may be amusing to read the comments of the speech or the leading +article, but the “despatch” is the substance: and however clever the +variations, the original melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine to +himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of all its +incidents—how insupportable would the slow procession of events +become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort of +Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded those who +differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat below the +“gangway.” There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic devices of +those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many men are their own +priests, their lawyers, and their doctors, and where, certes, each man is +his own prophet. +</p> +<p> +These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I took +yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our +diplomatists—one of those men who seem to weld into their happy +natures all the qualities which make good companionship, and blend with +the polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep +reflectiveness of a man of the world—a man to whom nothing comes +wrong, and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his +element at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands. +</p> +<p> +“I say, O’Dowd,” cried he, after a pause of some time in our conversation, +“has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires are destined to +be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within a very few years +neither of our occupations will have a representative left? Take my word +for it,” said he, more solemnly, “in less than ten years from the present +date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as a posthorse, and a post-shay not +more a curiosity than a minister-plenipotentiary.” + </p> +<p> +“Do you really think so?” + </p> +<p> +“I am certain of it. People nowadays won’t travel eight miles an hour, or +be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they’ve happened. Life is +too short for all this now, and, as we can’t lengthen our days, we must +shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman Mathews +used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, ‘Let me have +some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.’ Have you ever thought +seriously on the matter?” + </p> +<p> +“Never,” said I. +</p> +<p> +“You ought, then,” said he. “I tell you again, we are all in the same +category with flint locks and wooden ships—we belong to the past. +Don’t you know it? Don’t you feel it?” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t like to feel it,” said I, peevishly. +</p> +<p> +“Nonsense!” cried he, laughing. “Self-deception does nothing in the +matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a ‘smooth-Bore.’ +What ‘our own correspondent’ represents, I leave to your own modesty.” + </p> +<p> +“It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge,” said +I, gloomily. +</p> +<p> +“Of course it will, but there’s no help for it. Old novels go to the +trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-balls in +the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also? At +all events, I have a scheme for our transition state—a plan I have +long revolved in my mind—and there’s certainly something in it. +</p> +<p> +“First of all realise it, as the Yankees say, that neither a government +nor a public will want either of us. When the wires have told that the +Grand-Duke Strong-grog-enofif was assassinated last night, or that Prince +Damisseisen has divorced his wife and married a milliner, Downing Street +and Printing-house Square will agree that all the moral reflections the +events inspire can be written just as well in Piccadilly as from a palace +on the Neva, or a den on the Danube. Gladstone will be the better pleased, +and take another farthing off ‘divi-divi,’ or some other commodity in +general use and of universal appreciation. Don’t you agree to that?” + </p> +<p> +“I don’t know.” + </p> +<p> +“You don’t know,” drawled he out, in mimicry of my tone: “are you so +conceited about your paltry craft that you fancy the world cares for the +manner of it, or that there is really any excellence in the cookery? Not a +bit of it, man. We are bores both of us; and what’s worse—far worse—we +are bygones. Can’t you see that when a man buys a canister of prepared +beef-tea, he never asks any one to pour on the boiling water—he +brews his broth for himself? This is what people do with the telegrams. +They don’t want you or me to come in with the kettle: besides, all tastes +are not alike; one man may like his Bombardment of Charleston weaker; +another might prefer his Polish Massacre more highly flavoured. This is +purely a personal matter. How can you suit the capricious likings of the +million, and of the million—for that’s the worst of it—the +million that don’t want you? What a practical rebuke, besides, to prosy +talkers and the whole long-winded race, the sharp, short tap of the +telegraph! Who would listen to a narrative of Federal finance when he has +read ‘Gold at 204—Chase rigged the market’? Who asks for strategical +reasons in presence of ‘Almighty whipping—lost eighty thousand—Fourth +Michigan skedaddled ‘? +</p> +<p> +“How graphic will description become—how laconic all comment! You +will no more listen to one of the old circumlocutionary conversers than +you would travel by the waggon, or make a voyage in a collier. +</p> +<p> +“How, I would ask, could the business of life go on in an age active as +ours if all coinage was in copper, and vast transactions in money should +be all conducted in the base metal? Imagine the great Kings of Finance +counting over the debts of whole nations in penny-pieces, and you have at +once a picture of what, until a few years ago, was our intellectual +condition. How nobly Demosthenic our table-talk will be!—how grandly +abrupt and forensic! +</p> +<p> +“There is nothing, however, over which I rejoice more than in the utter +extinction of the anecdote-mongers—the insufferable monsters who +related Joe Millers as personal experiences, or gave you their own +versions of something in the morning papers. Thank heaven they are done +for! +</p> +<p> +“Last of all, the unhappy man who used to be sneered at for his silence in +company, will now be on a par with his fellows. The most bashful will be +able to blurt out, ‘Poles massacred,’ ‘Famine in Ireland,’ ‘Feast at the +Mansion House,’ ‘Collision at Croydon,’ ‘Bank discount eleven.’ +</p> +<p> +“Who will dare to propagate scandal, when all amplification is denied him? +How much adulteration will the liquor bear which is measured by drop? Nor +will the least of our benefits be the long, reflective pauses—those +brilliant ‘flashes of silence’ which will supersede the noise, turmoil, +and confusion of what we used to call conversation. No, no, Corneli mi. +The game is up. ‘Our own Correspondent’ is a piece that has run its +course, and there’s nothing to do but take a farewell benefit and quit the +boards.” + </p> +<p> +“If I could fall back on my pension like you, I’d perhaps take the matter +easier,” said I, gruffly. +</p> +<p> +“Well, I think you ought to be pensioned. If I was a Minister, I’d propose +it. My notion is this: The proper subjects for pension are those who, if +not provided for by the State, are likely to starve. They are, +consequently, the class of persons who have devoted their lives to an +unmarketable commodity—such as poonah-painting, Berlin-wool work, +despatch-writing, and suchlike. I’d include ‘penny-a-lining’—don’t +be offended because you get twopence, perhaps. I’d pension the whole of +them—pretty much as I’d buy off the organ-man, and request him to +move on.” + </p> +<p> +“As, however,” said I, “we are not fortunate enough to figure in the +Estimates, may I ask what is the grand scheme you propose for our +employment?” + </p> +<p> +“I’m coming to it. I’d have reached it ere this, if you had not required +such a positive demonstration of your utter uselessness. You have delayed +me by what Guizot used to call ‘an obstructive indisposition to believe.’” + </p> +<p> +“Go on; I yield—that is, under protest.” “Protest as much as you +like. In diplomacy a protest means, ‘I hope you won’t; but if you will, I +can’t help it,’ <i>Vide</i> the correspondence about the annexation of +Nice and Savoy. Now to my project. It is to start a monster hotel—one +of those gigantic establishments for which the Americans are famous—in +some much-frequented part of Europe, and to engage as part of the +household all the ‘own time’ celebrities of diplomacy and letters. Every +one knows—most of us have, indeed, felt—the desire experienced +to see, meet, and converse with the noticeable men of the world—the +people who, so to say, leave their mark on the age they live in—the +cognate signs of human algebra. Only fancy, then, with what ecstasy would +the traveller read the prospectus of an establishment wherein, as in a +pantheon, all the gods were gathered around him. What would not the Yankee +give for a seat at a table where the great Eltchi ladled out the soup, and +the bland-voiced author of ‘The Woman in White’ lisped out, ‘Sherry, sir?’ +Only imagine being handed one’s fish by the envoy that got us into the +Crimean war, or taking a potato served by the accomplished writer of +‘Orley Farm’! Picture a succession of celebrities in motion around the +table, and conceive, if you can, the vainglorious sentiment of the man +that could say, ‘Lyons, a little more fat;’ or, ‘Carlyle, madeira;’ and +imagine the luxury of that cup of tea so gracefully handed you by ‘Lost +and Saved,’ and the culminating pride of taking your flat candlestick from +the fingers of ‘Eleanor’s Victory.’ +</p> +<p> +“Who would not cross the great globe to live in such an atmosphere of +genius and grandeur? for if there be, as there may, souls dead to the +charms of literary greatness, who in this advanced age of ours is +indifferent to the claims of high rank and station and title? Fancy +sending a K.C.B. to call a cab, or ordering a special envoy to fetch the +bootjack! I dare not pursue the theme. I cannot trust myself to dwell on a +subject so imbued with suggestiveness—all the varying and wondrous +combinations such a galaxy of splendour and power would inevitably +produce. What wit, what smartness, what epigram would abound! What a +hailstorm of pleasantries, and what stories of wise aphorisms and profound +reflections! How I see with my mind’s eye the literary traveller trying to +overhear the Attic drolleries of the waiters as they wash up their +glasses, or endeavouring to decoy Boots into a stroll with a cigar, well +knowing his charming article on Dickens. +</p> +<p> +“The class-writers would of course have their specialties. ‘Soapy-Sponge’ +would figure in the stable-yard, and ‘Proverbial Philosophy’ watch the +trains as a touter. Fabulous prices might be obtained for a room in such +an establishment, and every place at the <i>table-d’hôte</i> should be +five guineas at least. For, after all, what would be an invitation to +Compiègne to a sojourn here? Material advantages might possibly incline to +the side of the Imperial board; but would any one presume to say that the +company in the one was equal to the ‘service’ at the other? Who would +barter the glorious reality of the first for the mean and shallow mockery +of the last? Last of all, how widespread and powerful would be the +influence of such an establishment over the manners of our time! Would +Cockneyism, think you, omit its H’s in presence of that bland individual +who offers him cheese? Would presumption dare to criticise in view of that +‘Quarterly’ man who is pouring out the bitter beer? What a check on the +expansive balderdash of the ‘gent’ at his dessert to know and feel that +‘Adam Bede’ was behind him! +</p> +<p> +“Would Brown venture on that anecdote of Jones if the napkin-in-hand +listener should be an ex-envoy renowned for his story-telling? Who would +break down in his history, enunciate a false quantity, misquote a speech, +or mistake the speaker, in such hearing? Some one might object to the +position and to the functions I assign to persons of a certain +distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act as a +hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I confess I +do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we are pleased to +call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, and that the man who +feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, capacity, and +attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior in station and +condition, has within his heart a pride all the more exalting that it is +stimulated by the sense of a great injustice, and the profound +consciousness that it is to himself, to his own nature, he must look to +redress the balance that fortune would set against him. +</p> +<p> +“In the brilliant conversation of the servants’ hall, then, would these +many gifted men take their revenge; and what stores of good stories, what +endless drolleries, what views of life, and what traits of character, +would they derive from the daily opportunities! It has constantly been +remarked by foreigners that there is no trait of our national manners less +graceful in itself than the way in which inferiors, especially menials, +are addressed in England. It is alleged, perhaps with some truth, that we +mark every difference of class more decisively than other nations; and +certainly in our treatment of servants there is none of that same +confidential tone so amusing in a French vaudeville. The scheme I now +suggest will be the effective remedy for this. +</p> +<p> +“Will Jones, think you, presume to be imperative if it be Alfred Tennyson +who has brought up his hot water? Will Brown be critical about the polish, +if it be Owen Meredith has taken him his boots? Will even Snooks cry out, +‘Holloa, you fellow!’ to a passing waiter, if the individual so addressed +might chance to be an Oriental Secretary or a Saturday Reviewer? +</p> +<p> +“And would the most infatuated of Bagmen venture on what O’Connell used to +call a ‘chuck-under-the-chin manner,’ were the chamber-maid to be Margaret +Maitland? +</p> +<p> +“Such, in brief, is my plan, O’Dowd; nor is the least of its advantages +that it gets rid of the Pension List, and that beggarly £1200 a-year by +which wealthy England assumes to aid the destitute sons and daughters of +letters. As for myself, I have fixed on my station. I mean to be +swimming-master, and the prospectus shall announce that His Excellency the +late Minister at the Court of——-ducks ladies every morning +from eight till nine. Think over the project, and drop me a hint as to the +sort of place would suit you.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ITALIAN TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. +</h2> +<p> +My diplomatic friend is rarely very serious in his humour; this morning, +however, he was rather disposed that way, and so I took the opportunity to +question him about Italy, a country where he has lived long, and whose +people he certainly understands better than most Englishmen. I gathered +from him that he considered the English were thoroughly well informed on +Italy, but in the most hopeless ignorance as to the Italians. “As for the +house and the furniture, you know it all.” said he; “but of the company +you know positively nothing.” + </p> +<p> +Byron understood them better than any other Englishman. He had his +admission <i>par la petite porte</i>—that is, he gained his +knowledge through his vices; and the Italians were so flattered to see a +great Milor adapt himself so readily to their lax notions and loose +morality that they grew frank and open with him. +</p> +<p> +His pretended—I suppose it was only pretended—dislike to +England disarmed them, too, of all distrust of him; and for the first time +they felt themselves judged by a man who did not think Charing Cross finer +than the Piazza del Popolo. +</p> +<p> +Byron’s rank and station gained him a ready acceptance where the masses of +our travelling countrymen would not be received; for the Italians love +rank, and respect all its gradations. Even the republics were great +aristocracies; and in all their imitations of France they have never +affected “equality.” They love splendour too, and display; and in all +their festivals you see something like an effort to recall a time when +their cities were the grandest and their citizens the proudest in all +Europe. +</p> +<p> +They are a very difficult people to understand. There are not so many +salient points in the Italian as in the German or the Frenchman; his +character is not so strongly accented; his traits are finer—his +shades of temperament more delicate. +</p> +<p> +Besides this, there is another difficulty: one is immensely aided in their +appreciation of a people by their lighter drama, which is in a measure a +reflex of the daily sayings and doings of those who listen to it. Now the +Italians have no comedy, or next to none; so barren are they in this +respect, that more than once have I asked myself, Can there be any +domesticity in a nation which has not mirrored itself on the stage? What +sort of a substance can that be that never had a shadow? +</p> +<p> +The immortal Goldoni, as they print him in all the play-bills, is +ineffably stupid, his characters ill drawn, his plots meagre, and his +dialogue as flat as the talk of a three-volume novel. The only palpable +lesson derivable from him is, that all ranks and classes stand pretty much +on an equality, and that as regards modes of expression the count and his +coachman are precisely on a level. There is scarcely a trait of humour in +these pieces—never, by any accident, anything bordering on wit. The +characters talk the veriest commonplaces, and announce the most humdrum +intentions in phraseology as flat and wearisome. +</p> +<p> +Now you will ask, perhaps, Is this a fair type of the present-day habits—are +the Italians of our time like those of Goldoni’s? My reply would be, that +it would be difficult to imagine a people who have changed less within a +century. The same small topics, the same petty interests engage them. They +display the same ardent enthusiasm about trifles, and the same thorough +indifference to great things, as their grandfathers; and they are +marvellously like the dreary puppets that the immortal dramatist has given +us as their representatives. +</p> +<p> +It has been reproached to Sheridan, that no people in real life ever +displayed such brilliancy in conversation as the characters in the ‘School +for Scandal;’ and tame as Goldoni reads, I verily believe his dialogue is +rather above the level of an Italian salon. +</p> +<p> +The great interests of Life, the game of politics, the contests and +reverses of party, literature in its various forms, and the sports of the +field, form topics which make the staple of our dinner-talk. Instead of +these the Italians have their one solitary theme—the lapses of their +neighbours, the scandals of the small world around them. Not that they are +uncharitable or malevolent; far from it. They discuss a frailty as a board +of physicians might a malady, and without the slightest thought of +imputing blame to “the patient.” They have now and then a hard word for an +unfortunate husband, but even him they treat rather as one ignorant of +conventional usages and the ways of the polite world, than as a man +radically bad or cruel. +</p> +<p> +They have in their blood the old Greek sensitiveness to suffering, and +they dislike painful scenes and disastrous catastrophes; and this +sentiment they carry to extremes. Although they have the finest +representative of Othello—Salvini—at this moment in Europe, +the terrible scene of the murder of Desdemona is a shock that many would +shrink from witnessing. They will bear any strain on the imagination, but +their fine-strung nerves revolt against the terrible in action. To this +natural refinement is owing much of that peculiar softness of manner and +reluctance to disoblige which foreigners frequently mistake for some +especial desire to win their favour. +</p> +<p> +The idleness which would make an Englishman awkward sits gracefully on the +Italian. He knows how to “do nothing” with dignity. Be assured, if +Hercules had been of Anglo-Saxon blood, Omphale would never have set him +down to spin; but being what he was, I could swear he went through his +tomfoolery gracefully. +</p> +<p> +And with all this, is it not strange that these are the people who furnish +the most reckless political enthusiasts of the world, and who, year after +year, go to the scaffold for “an idea”? There is something hysterical in +this Italian nature, which prompts to paroxysms like these—some of +that impulsive fury which, in the hill-tribes of India, sends down hordes +of fanatics to impale themselves on British bayonets. The men like Orsini +abound—calm of look, mild of speech, and gentle in manner, and yet +ready to commit the greatest of crimes and confront the most terrible of +deaths for a mere speculative notion—the possibility of certain +changes producing certain contingencies, and of which other changes are to +ensue, and Italy become something that she never was before, nor would the +rest of Europe suffer her to remain, if ever she attained to it. +</p> +<p> +Wine-tasters tell us it is vain to look for a bottle of unadulterated +port: I should in the same way declare that there are few rarer things to +be found than a purely Italian society. The charm of their glorious +climate; the beauty of their country, the splendour of their cities, rich +in centuries of associations, have attracted strangers from every corner +of the Old World and the New; and the salons of Italy are but +caravanserais, where all nations meet and all tongues are spoken. +</p> +<p> +The Italians like this; it flatters national pride, and it suits national +indolence. The outer barbarians from the Neva or the Thames have fine +houses and give costly entertainments. Their sterner looks and more robust +habits are meet subject for the faint little jests that are bandied in +some <i>patois</i>; and each thinks himself the superior of his neighbour. +But as for the home life of these people, who has seen it? What is known +of it? Into that long, lofty, arched-ceilinged drawing-room, lighted by +its one lamp, where sits the Signora with her daughter and the +grimy-looking, ill-shaven priest, there is not, perhaps, much temptation +to enter, nor is the conversation of a kind one would care to join in; and +there is but this, and the noisy, almost riotous, reception after the +opera, where a dozen people are contending at “Lansquenet,” while one or +perhaps two thump the piano, and some three or four shout rather than sing +the last popular melody of the season, din being accepted as gaiety, and a +clamour that would make deafness a blessing being taken for the delight of +a charmed assembly. +</p> +<p> +I have been told that Cavour once said, that no great change would be +accomplished in Italy till the Italians introduced the public-school +system of England. So long as the youth of the country were given up for +education to the priests—the most illiterate, narrow-minded, and +bigoted class in Europe—so long would they carry with them through +life the petty prejudices of their early days; or, in emancipating +themselves from these, fall into a scepticism whose baneful distrust would +damp the ardour of all patriotism, and sap the strength of every high and +generous emulation. As the great statesman said, “I want Italians to be +Italians, and not to be bad Frenchmen.” + </p> +<p> +With a Peninsular Eton or Rugby at work, who is to say what might not come +of a people whose intellectual qualities are unquestionably so great? The +system which imparts to boys the honourable sense of responsibility, the +high value of truthfulness, the scorn of all that is mean,—this is +what is wanting here. Let the Italian start in life with these, and it +would not be easy to set limits to what his country may become in +greatness. +</p> +<p> +I have never heard of a people with so little self-control; and their +crimes are, in a large majority of cases, the results of some passionate +impulse rather than of a matured determination to do wrong. It is by no +means uncommon to find that your butler or your coachman has taken to his +bed ill of a <i>rabbia</i>, as they call it—a fit of passion, in +plain words, brought on by a reproof he has considered unjust. This same +<i>rabbia</i> is occasionally a serious affair. Some short time ago, an +actor, who was hissed off the stage at Turin, went home and died of it; +and within a very few weeks, a case occurred in Florence which would be +laughable if it had not terminated so tragically. One of the new guardians +of the public safety, habited in a strange travestie of an English +police-costume, was followed through the streets by a crowd of boys, who +mocked and jeered him on his dress. Seeing that he resented their remarks +with temper, they only became more aggressive, and at last went so far as +to pursue him through the city with yells and cries. The man, overcome +with passion, got <i>rabbia</i>, and died. Ridicule is the one thing no +Italian can bear. When you lose temper with an Italian, and give way to +any show of violence before him, he is triumphant; his cheek glows, his +eye brightens, his chest expands, he sees he has you at a disadvantage, +and regards you as one who in a moment of passion has thrown his cards on +the table and exposed his hand. After this it is next to impossible to +regain your position before him. If you be calm, however, and if, besides +being calm, you can be sarcastic, he is overcome at once. +</p> +<p> +It is a rare thing—one of the rarest—to see this weapon +employed in the debates; but when it does occur, it is ever successful. +The fact is, that Wit, which forms the subtlety of other nations, is not +subtle enough for the Italian; and the edge that cuts so cleanly elsewhere +makes a jagged wound with them. +</p> +<p> +After all, they are very easy to live with. If the social atmosphere is +not very stimulating or invigorating, it is easy to breathe, and pleasant +withal; and one trait of theirs is not without its especial merit—they +are less under the control of conventionalities than any people I ever +heard of, and consequently have few affectations. If they do assume any +little part, or play off any little game, it is with the palpable object +of a distinct gain by it; never is it done for personal display or +individual glory. There are no more snobs in Italy than there are snakes +in Iceland; and that, after all, is, as the world goes, saying something +for a people. +</p> +<p> +Of all the nations of Europe, I know of none, save Italy, in which the +characters are the same in every class and gradation. The appeal you would +make to the Italian noble must be the same you would address to the humble +peasant on his property. The point of view is invariably identical; the +sympathies are always alike. No matter what differences education may have +instituted and habits implanted, the nobleman and his lackey think and +feel and reason alike. Separate them how you will in station, and they +will still approach the consideration of any subject in the same spirit, +and regard it with the same hopes and fears, the same expectations and +distrusts. To this trait, of whose existence Cavour well knew, was owing +the marvellous unanimity in the nation on the last war with Austria. The +appeal to the prince could be addressed, and was addressed, to the +peasant. There was not an argument that spoke to the one which was not +re-echoed in the heart of the other. In fact, the chain that binds the +social condition of Italy is shorter than elsewhere, and the extreme links +are less remote from each other than with most nations of Europe. +</p> +<p> +Every Italian is a conspirator, whether the question be the gravest or the +lightest; all must be done in it ambiguously—secretly— +mysteriously. Whatever is conducted openly is deemed to be done stupidly. +To take a house, buy a horse, or hire a servant without the intervention +of another man to disparage the article, chaffer over the price, and +disgust the vendor, is an act of impetuous folly. “Why didn’t you tell <i>me!</i>” + says your friend, “that you wished to have that villa? My coachman is +half-brother to the wife of the <i>fattore</i>. I could have learned +everything that could be urged against its convenience, and learned, +besides, what peculiar pressure for money affected the owner.” Besides +this, everything must be done as though by mere hazard: you really never +knew there was a house there, never noticed it; you even sneer at the +taste of the man who selected the spot, and wonder “what he meant by it.” + In nine cases out of ten the other party is not deceived by this +skirmishing; he fires a little blank-cartridge too, and so goes on the +engagement. All have great patience; life, at least in Italy, is quite +long enough for all this; no one is overburdened with business; the days +are usually wearisome, and the theatres are only open of an evening! +</p> +<p> +It is, besides, so pleasant and so interesting to the Italian to pit his +craft against another man’s, and back his own subtlety against his +neighbour’s. It is a sort of gambling of which he never wearies; for the +game is one that demands not merely tact, address, and cunning, but face, +voice, manner, and bearing. It is temperament. Individuality itself is on +the table; and so is it, that you may assume it as certain that the higher +organisation will invariably rise the winner. +</p> +<p> +Imagine Bull in such a combat, and you have a picture of the most hopeless +incapacity. He frets, fumes, storms, and sulks; but what avails it? he is +“done” in the end; but he is no more aware that the struggle he has been +engaged in is an intellectual one, than was the Bourgeois Gentilhomme +conscious that he had been for forty years “talking prose.” + </p> +<p> +The Priest was doubtless the great originator of all this mechanism of +secrecy and fraud. For centuries the Church has been the Tyrant of Italy. +The whole fate and fortunes of families depended on the will of a poor, +ill-clad, ignoble-looking creature, who, though he sat at meals with the +master, ate and talked like a menial. To this man was known everything—all +that passed beneath the roof. Not alone was he aware of the difficulties, +the debts, the embarrassments of the family, but to him were confided +their feelings, their shortcomings, their sorrows, and it might be their +shame. From him there was nothing secret; and he sat there, in the midst +of them, a sort of Fate, wielding the power of one who knew every spring +and motive that could stir them, every hope that could thrill, every +terror that could appal them. There was no escape from him—cold, +impassive spectator of good or evil fortune, without one affection to +attach him to life, grimly watching the play of passions which made men +his slaves, and only interested by the exercise of a power that degraded +them. The layman could not outwit him, it is true, but he could steal +something of the craft that he could not rival. This he has done; how he +has employed it any one can at least imagine who has had dealings in +Italy. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE DECLINE OF WHIST. +</h2> +<p> +What is the reason of the decline of Whist? Why is it that every year we +find fewer players, and less proficiency in those who play? It is a far +graver question than it may seem at first blush, and demands an amount of +investigation much deeper than I am able to give it here. +</p> +<p> +Of course I am prepared to hear that people nowadays are too accomplished +and too intellectual to be obliged to descend for their pastime to a mere +game at cards; that higher topics engage and higher interests occupy them; +that they read and reflect more than their fathers and grandfathers did; +and that they would look down with disdain upon an intellectual combat +where the gladiators might be the last surviving veterans of a bygone +century. +</p> +<p> +Now, if the conversational tone of our time were pre-eminently brilliant—if +people were wiser, wittier, more amusing, and more instructive than +formerly—if we lived in an age of really good talkers,—I might +assent to the force of this explanation; but what is the truth? Ours is, +of all the times recorded by history, the dullest and dreariest: rare as +whist-players are, pleasant people are still rarer. It is not merely that +the power of entertaining is gone, but so has the ambition. Nobody tries +to please, and the success is admirable! It is fashionable to be stupid, +and we are the most modish people in the universe. It is absurd, then, in +a society whose interchange of thought is expressed in monosyllables, and +a certain haw-haw dreariness pervades all intercourse, to say that people +are above Whist. Why, they are below Push-pin! +</p> +<p> +It would be sufficient to point to the age when Whist was most in vogue, +to show that it flavoured a society second to none in agreeability; and +who were the players? The most eminent divines, the greatest ministers, +the most profound jurists, the most subtle diplomatists. What an influence +a game so abounding in intellectual teaching must have exercised on the +society where it prevailed, can scarcely be computed. Blackstone has a +very remarkable passage on the great social effect produced upon the +Romans by their popular games; and he goes so far as to say that society +imbibes a vast amount of those conventionalities which form its laws, from +an Tin-conscious imitation of the rules which govern its pastimes. Take +our own time, and I ask with confidence, should we find such want of +purpose as our public men exhibit, such uncertainty, such feebleness, and +such defective allegiance to party, in a whist-playing age? Would men be +so ready as we see them to renounce their principles, if they bore fresh +in their mind all the obloquy that follows “a revoke”? Would they misquote +their statistics in face of the shame that attends on “a false score”? +Would they be so ready to assert what they know they must retract, if they +had a recent recollection of being called on “to take down the honours”? +</p> +<p> +Think, then, of the varied lessons—moral as well as mental—that +the game instils; the caution, the reserve, the patient attention, the +memory, the deep calculation of probabilities, embracing all the rules of +evidence, the calm self-reliance, and the vigorous daring that shows when +what seems even rashness may be the safest of all expedients. Imagine the +daily practice of these gifts and faculties, and tell me, if you can, that +he who exercises them can cease to employ them in his everyday life. You +might as well assert that the practice of gymnastics neither develops the +muscle nor increases strength. +</p> +<p> +I cannot believe a great public man to have attained a fall development of +his power if he has not been a whist-player; and for a leader of the +House, it is an absolute necessity. Take a glance for a moment at what +goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. +Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his +party that unhappy man is, who <i>will</i> ask a question to-day which +this day week would be unanswerable. What is that but “playing his card +out of time”? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the +unlucky “something” being the key-note to his party’s politics which he +has thus disclosed. What is this but “showing his hand”? Hear that dreary +blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has just +asserted—“trumping,” as it were, “his partner’s trick.” Or that +still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken “the +lead out of the hand” that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would +there be one—even one—of these solecisms committed in an age +when Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and +practice of the odd trick? +</p> +<p> +Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston “forces the hand” of the +Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon the card +Lord Russell has let drop, and “calls on him to play it.” And in the face +of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered creatures Leech +gives us in ‘Punch,’ who, if asked, “Can they play?” answer with a +contemptuous ha-ha laugh, “I rather think not.” + </p> +<p> +To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude +occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand’s +sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable +advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down in +that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and +brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era. By +what other agency—through what fortuitous combination of events +other than the game—could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How +could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual +intimacy? +</p> +<p> +It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this +situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do not +possess—any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest +inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical of +those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries of +this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in the +lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance. Not one +of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet he was a +good player: too venturous, perhaps—too dashing—but splendid +with “a strong hand!” During all the sittings of the Paris Congress he +played every night at the Jockey Club, and won very largely—some say +above twenty thousand pounds. +</p> +<p> +The late Prince Metternich played well, but not brilliantly. It was a +patient, cautious, back-game, and never fully developed till the last card +was played. He grew easily tired too, and very seldom could sit out more +than twelve or fourteen rubbers; unlike Talleyrand, who always arose from +table, after perhaps twelve hours’ play, fresher and brighter than when he +began. Lord Melbourne played well, but had moments of distraction, when he +suffered the smaller interests of politics to interfere with his +combinations. I single him out, however, as a graceful compliment to a +party who have numbered few good players in their ranks; for certainly the +Tories could quote folly ten to one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs +are too superficial, too crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be +whist-players; and, worse than all, too distrustful. A Whig could never +trust his partner—he could not for a moment disabuse himself of the +notion that his colleague meant to outwit him. A Whig, too, would +invariably try to win by something not perfectly legitimate; and, last of +all, he would be incessantly appealing to the bystanders, and asking if he +had not, even if egregiously beaten, played better than his opponents. +</p> +<p> +The late Cabinet of Lord Derby contained some good players. Two of the +Secretaries of State were actually fine players, and one of them adds +Whist to accomplishments which would have made their possessor an +Admirable Crichton, if genius had not elevated him into a far loftier +category than Crichtons belong to. Rechberg plays well, and likes his +game; but he is in Whist, as are all Germans, a thorough pedant. I +remember an incident of his whist-life sufficiently amusing in its way, +though, in relation, the reader loses what to myself is certainly the +whole pungency of the story: I mean the character and nature of the person +who imparted the anecdote to me, and who is about the most perfect +specimen of that self-possession, which we call coolness, the age we live +in can boast of. +</p> +<p> +I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in +many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the +requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which make +of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that walks +the earth. +</p> +<p> +I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. “I used to +play a good deal with Rechberg,” said he, “and took pleasure in worrying +him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with anything +that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each game was +followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense +mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and +offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian. +</p> +<p> +“One evening, after a number of these discussions, in which Rechberg had +displayed an even unusual warmth and irritability, I found myself opposed +to him in a game, the interest of which had drawn around us a large +assembly of spectators—what the French designate as <i>la galerie</i>. +Towards the conclusion of the game it was my turn to lead, and I played a +card which so astounded the Austrian Minister, that he laid down his cards +upon the table and stared fixedly at me. +</p> +<p> +“‘In all my experience of Whist,’ said he, deliberately, ‘I never saw the +equal of that.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Of what?’ asked! +</p> +<p> +“‘Of the card you have just played,’ rejoined he. ‘It is not merely that +such play violates every principle of the game, but it actually stultifies +all your own combinations.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘I think differently, Count,’ said I. ‘I maintain that it is good play, +and I abide by it.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Let us decide it by a wager,’ said he. +</p> +<p> +“‘In what way?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Thus: We shall leave the question to the <i>galerie</i>. You shall +allege what you deem to be the reasons for your play, and they shall +decide if they accept them as valid.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘I agree. What will you bet?’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Ten napoleons—twenty, fifty, five hundred if you like!’ cried he, +warmly. +</p> +<p> +“‘I shall say ten. You don’t like losing, and I don’t want to punish you +too heavily.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘There is the jury, sir,’ said he, haughtily; ‘make your case.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘The wager is this,’ said I, ‘that, to win, I shall satisfy these +gentlemen that for the card I played I had a sufficient and good reason.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘Yes.’ +</p> +<p> +“‘My reason was this, then—I looked into your hand!’ +</p> +<p> +“I pocketed his ten napoleons, but they were the last I won of him. +Indeed, it took a month before he got over the shock.” + </p> +<p> +It would be interesting if we had, which unhappily we have not, any +statistical returns to show what classes and professions have produced the +best whist-players. In my own experience I have found civilians the +superiors of the military. +</p> +<p> +Diplomatists I should rank first; their game was not alone finer and more +subtle, but they showed a recuperative power in their play which others +rarely possessed: they extricated themselves well out of difficulties, and +always made their losses as small as possible. Where they broke down was +when they were linked with a bad partner: they invariably played on a +level which he could never attain to, and in this way cross purposes and +misunderstandings were certain to ensue. +</p> +<p> +Lawyers, as a class, play well; but their great fault is, they play too +much for the <i>galerie</i>. The habit of appealing to the jury jags and +blurs the finer edge of their faculties, and they are more prone to +canvass the suffrages of the surrounders than to address themselves to the +actual issue. For this reason, Equity practitioners are superior to the +men in the courts below. +</p> +<p> +Physicians are seldom first-rate players—they are always behind +their age in Whist, and rarely, if ever, know any of the fine points which +Frenchmen have introduced into the game. Their play, too, is timid—they +regard trumps as powerful stimulants, and only administer them in +drop-doses. They seldom look at the game as a great whole, but play on, +card after card, deeming each trick they turn as a patient disposed of, +and not in any way connected with what has preceded or is to follow it. +</p> +<p> +Divines are in Whist pretty much where geology was in the time of the +first Georges; still I have met with a bishop and a stray archdeacon or +two who could hold their own. I am speaking here of the Establishment, +because in Catholic countries the higher clergy are very often good +players. Antonelli, for instance, might sit down at the Portland or the +Turf; and even my old friend G. P. would find that his Eminence was his +match. +</p> +<p> +Soldiers are sorry performers, for mess-play is invariably bad; but +sailors are infinitely worse. They have but one notion, which is to play +out all the best cards as fast as they can, and then appeal to their +partner to score as many tricks as they have—an inhuman performance, +which I have no doubt has cost many apoplexies. +</p> +<p> +On the whole, Frenchmen are better players than we are. Their game is less +easily divined, and all their intimations (<i>invites</i>) more subtle and +more refined. The Emperor plays well. In England he played a great deal at +the late Lord Eglinton’s, though he was never the equal of that +accomplished Earl, whose mastery of all games, especially those of +address, was perfection. +</p> +<p> +The Irish have a few brilliant players—one of them is on the bench; +but the Scotch are the most winning of all British whisters. The Americans +are rarely first-rate, but they have a large number of good second-class +players. Even with them, however, Whist is on the decline; and Euchre and +Poker, and a score more of other similar abominations, have usurped the +place of the king of games. What is to be done to arrest the progress of +this indifferentism?—how are we to awaken men out of the stupor of +this apathy? Have they never heard of the terrible warning of Talleyrand +to his friend who could not play, as he said, “Have you reflected on the +miserable old age that awaits you?” How much of human nature that would +otherwise be unprofitable can be made available by Whist! What scores of +tiresome old twaddlers are there who can still serve their country as +whisters! what feeble intelligences that can flicker out into a passing +brightness at the sight of the “turned trump”! +</p> +<p> +Think of this, and think what is to become of us when the old, the feeble, +the tiresome, and the interminable will all be thrown broadcast over +society without an object or an occupation. Imagine what Bores will be let +loose upon the world, and fancy how feeble will be all efforts of wit or +pleasantry to season a mass of such incapables! Think, I say, think of +this. It is a peril that has been long threatening—even from that +time when old Lord Hertford, baffled and discouraged by the invariable +reply, “I regret, my Lord, that I cannot play Whist,” exclaimed, “I really +believe that the day is not distant when no gentleman can have a vice that +requires more than two people!” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ONE OF OUR “TWO PUZZLES”. +</h2> +<p> +The two puzzles of our era are, how to employ our women, and what to do +with our convicts; and how little soever gallant it may seem to place them +in collocation, there is a bond that unites the attempt to keep the good +in virtue with the desire to reform the bad from vice, which will save me +from any imputation of deficient delicacy. +</p> +<p> +Let us begin with the Women. An enormous amount of ingenuity has been +expended in devising occupations where female labour might be +advantageously employed, and where the more patient industry and more +delicate handiwork of women might replace the coarser mechanism of men. +Printing, bookbinding, cigar-making, and the working of the telegraph, +have been freely opened—and, I believe, very successfully—to +female skill; and scores of other callings have been also placed at their +disposal: but, strange enough, the more that we do, the more there remains +to be done; and never have the professed advocates of woman’s rights been +so loud in their demands as since we have shared with them many of what we +used to regard as the especial fields of man’s industry. Women have taken +to the practice of Medicine, and have threatened to invade the Bar—steps +doubtless anticipatory of the time when they shall “rise in the House” or +sit on the Treasury benches. Now, I have very little doubt that we used +not to be as liberal as we might in sharing our callings with women. We +had got into the habit of underrating their capacities, and disparaging +their fitness for labour, which was very illiberal; but let us take care +that the reaction does not cany us too far on the other side, and that in +our zeal to make a reparation we only make a blunder, and that we +encourage them to adopt careers and crafts totally unsuited to their +tastes and their powers. +</p> +<p> +It is quite clear—in fact, a mere glance at the detail of the +preliminary studies will suffice to show it—that medicine and +surgery should not be shared with them. For a variety of reasons, they +ought not to be encouraged to take holy orders; and, on the whole, it is +very doubtful if it would be a wise step to introduce them into the army, +much less into the navy. Seeing this, therefore, the question naturally +arises, Are women to be the mere drudges—the Helots of our +civilisation? Are we only to employ them in such humble callings as +exclude all ideas of future distinction? A very serious question this, and +one over which I pondered for more than half an hour last night, as I lay +under the influence of some very strong tea and a slight menace of gout. +</p> +<p> +Women are very haughty creatures—very resentful of any supposed +slight—very aggressive, besides, if they imagine the time for attack +favourable. Will they sit down patiently as makers of pill-boxes and +artificial flowers? Will they be satisfied with their small gains and +smaller consideration? Will there not be ambitious spirits amongst them +who will ask, What do you mean to offer us? We are of a class who neither +care to bind books nor draw patterns. We are your equals—if we were +not distinctively modest, we might say something more than your equals—in +acquirement and information. We have our smattering of physical-science +humbug, as you have; we are read up in theological disputation, and are as +ready as you to stand by Colenso against Moses; in modern languages we are +more than your match. What have you to offer us if we are too proud, or +too poor, or too anything else, to stand waiting for a buyer in the +marriage-market of Belgravia? You will not suffer us to enter the learned +professions nor the Service; you will not encourage us to be architects, +attorneys, land-agents, or engineers. We know and we feel that there is +not one of these callings either above our capacity or unsuited to our +habits, but you deny us admittance; and now we ask, What is your scheme +for our employment? what project have you that may point out to us a +future of independence and a station of respect? Have you such a plan? or, +failing it, have you the courage to proclaim to the world that all your +boasted civilisation can offer us is to become the governesses to the +children of our luckier sisters? But there are many of us totally unsuited +to this, brought up with ways and habits that would make such an existence +something very like penal servitude—what will you do with us? +</p> +<p> +With this cry—for it became a cry—in my ears, I tried to go +asleep. I counted seventeen hundred and forty-four; I thought of the sea; +I imagined I was listening to Dr Cumming; and I endeavoured to repeat a +distich of Martin Tupper: but the force of conscience and the congo +carried the day, and I addressed myself vigorously to the question. I +thought of making them missionaries, lighthouse-keepers, lunacy +commissioners, Garter Kings-at-Arms, and suchlike, when a brilliant +thought flashed across my brain, and, with the instinct of a great +success, I saw I had triumphed. “Yes,” cried I aloud, “there is one grand +career for women—a career which shall engage not alone all the +higher and more delicate traits of their organisation, which will call +forth their marvellous clear-sightedness and quick perception, their tact, +their persuasiveness, and their ingenuity, but will actually employ the +less commendable features of female nature, and find work for their powers +of concealment, their craft in deception, and their passion for intrigue. +How is it that we have never hit upon it before? for of all the careers +meant by nature for women, was there any one could compare with +Diplomacy!” + </p> +<p> +Here we have at once the long-sought-for career—the <i>desideratum +tanti studii</i>—the occupation for which men are too coarse, too +clumsy, too inept, and which requires the lighter touch and more delicate +treatment of female fingers. It is the everyday reproach heard of us +abroad, that our representatives are deficient in those smaller and nicer +traits by which irritations are avoided and unpleasant situations +relieved. John, they say, always imagines that to be national he must be +“Bull,” and toss on his horns “all and every” that opposes him. Now, late +events might have disabused foreign cabinets on this score: a quieter +beast than he has shown himself need not be wished for. Still, he has +bellowed, and lashed his tail, and cut a few absurd capers, to show what +he would be at if provoked; but the world has grown too wise to be +terrified by such exhibitions, and quietly settled down to the opinion +that there is nothing to fear from him. Now, how very differently might +all this have been if the Duchess of S. were Ambassador at Paris, and the +Countess of C. at St Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would have +been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying—none of that blundering +about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress “ought to follow a +war,” and proposing one to-morrow, “to prevent a war.” Women despise +logic, and consequently would not stultify it. A temperance apostle is not +likely to adulterate the liquor that he does not drink; and for this +reason, female intelligence would have escaped this “muddle.” Her Ladyship +would have thrown her blandishments over Rechberg—he is now of the +age when men are easy victims—all the little cajoleries and +flatteries of women’s art would have been exerted first to find out, and +then to thwart, his policy. It is notorious that English diplomacy knows +next to nothing through secret agency. Would such be the case if we had +women as envoys? What mystery would stand the assault of a fine lady, +trained and practised by the habits of her daily life? +</p> +<p> +They tell us that our fox-hunters would form the finest scout-cavalry in +Europe; and I am convinced that a London leader of fashion—I have a +dozen in my eye at this moment—would track an intrigue through all +its stages, and learn its intimate details of place and time and agency, +weeks before a merely male intelligence began to suspect the thing was +possible. +</p> +<p> +Imagine what a blue-book would be in these times—would there be any +reading could compare with it? We used to admire a certain diplomatist—a +pleasant narrator of court gossip—giving, as he did, little traits +of Kings and Kaisers, and telling us the way in which majesty was +graciously pleased to blow his royal nose. Imagine a female pen engaged on +such themes! What clever and sharp little touches would reveal the whole +tone of a “reception”! We should not be told “His Majesty received me +coldly,” but we would have a beautiful analysis of the royal mind in all +its varied moods of displeasure, concealment, urbanity, reserve, and +deception. Compared with the male version of the same incident, it would +be like Faraday’s report on a case of supposed poisoning beside the +blundering narrative of a country apothecary! +</p> +<p> +It is a long time—a very long time—before an old country has +energy enough to throw off any of its accustomed ways. It requires the +vigorous assault of young and sturdy intelligences, and, above all, +immense persistence, to effect it. +</p> +<p> +Light comes very slowly indeed through the fog of centuries’ growth, and +there is hope always when even the faintest flicker of a ray pierces the +Boeotian cloud. Now, for some years back, it may have been remarked that a +sort of suspicion has been breaking on the minds of our rulers, that the +finer, the higher, and subtler organisations of women might find their +suitable sphere of occupation in the diplomatic service. +</p> +<p> +“I don’t speak German, but I play the German flute,” said the apologetic +gentleman; and so might we say. We don’t engage ladies in diplomacy, but +we employ all the old women of our own sex! Wherever we find a +well-mannered, soft-spoken, fussy old soul, with a taste for fine clothes +and fine dinners, fond of court festivities, and heart and soul devoted to +royalties, we promote him. If he speak French tolerably, we make him a +Minister; if he be fluent, an Envoy Extraordinary. +</p> +<p> +I remember an old medical lecturer in Dublin formerly, who used to hold +forth on the Materia Medica in the hall of the University, and who, seeing +a “student” whose studies had been for some time before pursued in +Germany, appear in the lecture-room, with a note-book and pen to take down +the lecture— +</p> +<p> +“Tell that young gentleman,” said the Professor, “to put up his writing +materials, for there’s not one word he’ll hear from me that he’ll not find +in the oldest editions of the ‘Dublin Pharmacopoeia.’” In the same spirit +our diplomatists may sneer at the call for blue-books. We have all of us +had the whole thing already in the ‘Times;’ and why? Because we choose to +employ unsuitable tools. We want to shave with a hatchet instead of a +razor; for be it remarked, as no things are so essentially unlike as those +that have a certain resemblance, there is nothing in nature so remote from +the truly feminine finesse as the mind of a male “old woman.” + </p> +<p> +It is simply to the flaws and failures of female intelligence that the +parallel applies. A very pleasant old parson, whom I knew when I was a +boy, and who used to discourse to me much about Edmund Burke and Gavin +Hamilton, told me once that he met old Primate Stewart one day returning +from a visitation, and turned his horse round to accompany the carriage +for some distance. “Doctor G.,” said the Archbishop, “you remind me most +strikingly of my friend Paley.” + </p> +<p> +“Oh, my Lord, it is too much honour: I have not the shadow of a pretension +to such distinction.” + </p> +<p> +“Well, sir, it is true; I have Paley before me as I look at you.” + </p> +<p> +“I am overwhelmed by your Lordship’s flattery.” + </p> +<p> +“Yes, sir; Paley rode just such another broken-down old grey nag as that.” + </p> +<p> +Do not therefore disparage my plan for the employment of women in +diplomacy by any ungenerous comparisons with the elderly ladies at present +engaged in it. This would be as unfair as it is ungallant. +</p> +<p> +There are a variety of minor considerations which I might press into the +cause, but some of them would appeal less to the general mind than to the +official, and I omit them—merely observing what facilities it would +give for the despatch of business, if the Minister, besieged, as he often +now is, by lady-applicants for a husband’s promotion, instead of the +tedious inquiry, “Who is Mr D.?—where has he been?—what has he +done?—what is he capable of?” could simply say, “Make Mrs T. Third +Secretary at Stuttgart, and send Mrs O’Dowd as Vice-Consul to Simoom!” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A MASTERLY INACTIVITY. +</h2> +<p> +It is no small privilege to you “gentlemen of England who live at home at +ease,” or otherwise, that you cannot hear how the whole Continent is +talking of you at this moment. We have, as a nation, no small share of +self-sufficiency and self-esteem. If we do not thank God for it, we are +right well pleased to know that we are not like that Publican there, “who +eats garlic, or carries a stiletto, or knouts his servants, or indulges in +any other taste or pastime of ‘the confounded foreigner.’” The ‘Times’ +proclaims how infinitely superior we are every morning; and each traveller—John +Murray in hand—expounds in his bad French, that an Englishman is the +only European native brought up in the knowledge of truth and the +wash-tub. +</p> +<p> +By dint of time, iteration, and a considerable amount of that same French +I speak of, an article expressly manufactured for exportation, we really +did at last persuade patient and suffering Europe to take us at our own +valuation. We got them to believe that—with certain little +peculiarities, certain lesser vices, rather amiable than otherwise—no +nation, ancient or modern, could approach us. That we were at one and the +same time the richest, the strongest, the most honourable, the most +courageous people recorded in history; and not alone this, but the +politest and the most conciliatory, with the largest coal-fields and the +best cookery in Europe. Now, there is nothing more damaging than the +witness who proves too much. Miss Edgeworth tells us somewhere, I think, +of an Irish peer who, travelling in France with a negro servant, directed +him, if questioned on the subject, always to say his master was a +Frenchman. He was punctiliously faithful to his orders; but whenever he +said, “My massa a Frenchman,” he always added, “So am I.” + </p> +<p> +In the same spirit has Bull gone and damaged himself abroad. He might have +enjoyed an unlimited credit for his stories of English wealth and +greatness—how big was our fleet, and how bitter our beer; he might +have rung the changes over our just pride in our insular position and our +income-tax, and none dared to dispute him; but when, in the warm +expansiveness of his enthusiasm, he proceeded to say, not merely that we +dressed better and dined better than the foreigner, but that our manners +were more polished, our address more insinuating, and the amiability of +our whole social tone more conspicuous, “Mossoo,” taking him to represent +all from Stockholm to Sicily, began to examine for himself, and after some +hesitation to ask, “What if the wealth be only like the politeness? What +if the national character be about as rude as the cookery? What if English +morality turn out to be a jumble and confusion, very like English-French? +Who is to tell us that the coal-fields may not be as easily exhausted as +the civility?” These were very ugly doubts, and for some years back +foreigners, after that slow fashion in which public opinion moves amongst +them, have been turning them over and over, but in a manner that showed a +great revulsion had taken place on the Continent with regard to the +estimate of England. +</p> +<p> +A nation usually judges another nation by the individuals and by the +Government. Now it is no calumny to say that, taking them <i>en masse</i>, +the English who travel abroad, whether it be from indifference, from +indolence, from a rooted confidence in their own superiority, or from some +defect in character, neither win favour for themselves, nor affection for +their country from foreigners. So long as we were looked upon, however, as +colossal in wealth and power, a certain rude and abrupt demeanour was +taken as the type of a people too practical to be polished. It grew to be +thought that intense activity and untiring energy had no time to bestow on +mere forms. When, however, a suspicion began to get abroad—it was a +cloud no bigger at first than a man’s hand—that if we had the money +it was to hoard it, and if we had the power it was to withhold its +exercise; that we wanted, in fact, to impose on the world by the menace of +a force we never meant to employ, and to rule Europe as great financiers +“bear” the Stock Exchange—then, and then for the first time, there +arose that cry against England as a sham and an imposition, of which, as I +said before, it is very pleasant for you at home if the sounds have not +reached you. +</p> +<p> +All our late policy has led to this. Ever ready to join with France, we +always leave her in the lurch. We went with her to Mexico, and left her +when she landed. We did our utmost to launch her into a war for Poland, in +which we had never the slightest intention of joining. Always prompt for +the initiative, we stop short immediately after. I have a friend who says, +“I am very fond of going to church, but I don’t like going in.” This is +exactly the case of England. She won’t go in. +</p> +<p> +Now, I am fully persuaded it would have been a mistake to have joined in +the Mexican campaign. I cannot imagine such a congeries of blunders as a +war for the Poles. But why entertain these questions? Why discuss them in +cabinets, and debate them in councils? Why convey the false impression +that you are indignant when you are indifferent, or feel sympathy for +sufferings of which you will do nothing but talk? +</p> +<p> +“Masterly inactivity” was as unlucky a phrase as ever was coined. It has +led small statesmanship into innumerable blunders, and made second-rate +politicians fancy that whenever they folded their arms they were +dignified. To obtain the credit for a masterly inactivity, it is first of +all essential you should show that you could do something very great if +you would. There would be no credit in a man born deaf and dumb having +observed a discreet silence. To give England, therefore, the prestige for +this high quality, it was necessary that she should seem to bestir +herself. The British lion must have got up, rolled his eyes fearfully, and +even lashed his tail, before he resolved on the masterly inactivity of +lying down again. +</p> +<p> +In Knickerbocker’s ‘History of New York’ we have a very graphic +description of the ship in which the first Dutch explorers sailed for the +shores of North America. “The vessel was called the <i>Goede Vrouw</i> +(Good Woman), a compliment to the wife of the President of the West India +Company, who was allowed by every one, except her husband, to be a +sweet-tempered lady—when not in liquor. It was, in truth, a gallant +vessel of the most approved Dutch construction—made by the ablest +ship-carpenters of Amsterdam, who, as is well known, always model their +ships after the fair forms of their countrywomen. Accordingly, it had one +hundred feet in the keel, one hundred feet in the beam, and one hundred +feet from the bottom of the stern-post to the taffrel. Like the beauteous +model, who was declared to be the greatest belle of Amsterdam, it was full +in the bows, with a pair of enormous cat-heads, a copper-bottom, and +withal a prodigious poop.” + </p> +<p> +It is, however, with her sailing qualities we are more interested than +with her build. “Thus she made as much lee-way as head-way—could get +along nearly as fast with the wind ahead as at poop, and was particularly +great in a calm.” Would not one say, in reading this description, that the +humorist was giving prophetically a picture of the England of the present +day, making as much lee-way as head-way, none the better, wherever the +winds came from, and only great in a calm? The very last touch he gives is +exquisite. “Thus gallantly furnished, she floated out of harbour sideways, +like a majestic goose.” Can anything be more perfect; can anything more +neatly typify the course the vessel of the State is taking, “floating out +sideways, like a majestic goose!” amidst the jeers and mockeries of +beholding Europe. +</p> +<p> +Our whole policy consists in putting forward some hypothetical case, in +which, if certain other states were to do something which would cause +another country to do something else, then England would be found in that +case—— God forgive me! +</p> +<p> +I was going to quote some of that balderdash which reminds one of ‘The +Rivals,’ where Acres says, “If you had called me a poltroon, Sir Lucas!” + </p> +<p> +“Well, sir, and if I had?” + </p> +<p> +“In that case I should have thought you a very ill-bred man.” + </p> +<p> +See what it is to have a literary Foreign Secretary; see how he goes back +to our great writers, not alone for his style, but his statesmanship. We +have been insulted, mocked, and sneered at; our national honour derided, +our national strength defied; but we are told it is all right: our policy +is a “masterly inactivity,” and the Funds are at ninety-one and +one-eighth! +</p> +<p> +The ‘Times.’ too, is of the same cheery and encouraging spirit, and +philosophically looks on the misfortunes of our friends pretty much as +friends’ misfortunes are usually regarded in life—occasions for a +tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them—the writer +speaks of the Allied armies—let them go on in the career of rapine +and cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time +will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be +retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on the +soil of the Fatherland. +</p> +<p> +“They are going to hang Larry,” cried the wife of a condemned felon to the +lawyer, who had hurried into court, having totally forgotten he had ever +engaged to defend the prisoner. +</p> +<p> +“Let them hang him, and I’ll make it the dearest hanging ever they +hanged.” + </p> +<p> +These may be words of comfort in Downing Street. I wonder what the Danes +think of them? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A NEW HANSARD. +</h2> +<p> +There is an annual publication called the ‘Wreck Register,’ which probably +few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to record all +the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, accompanying the +narrative by such remarks or observations as may contribute to explain +each catastrophe, or offer likelihood of prevention in future. It is, +though thoroughly divested of any sensational character, one of the +dreariest volumes one can take up. Disaster follows disaster so fast, that +at length the reader begins to imagine that shipwreck is the all but +invariable event of a voyage, and that they who cross the ocean in safety +are the lucky mortals of humanity. +</p> +<p> +Fortunately, however, long as the catalogue of misfortune is, this is not +the case, and we have the satisfaction of learning that the percentage of +loss is decreasing with every year. The higher knowledge and attainments +of merchant captains, and the increase of refuge harbours, are the chief +sources of this security. The old ignorance, in which a degree or two of +latitude more or less was a light error in a ship’s reckoning, is now +unheard of, and they who command merchant-ships in our day are a very well +informed and superior order of men. With reference to the conduct and +capacity of these captains, this ‘Wreck Register,’ is a very instructive +publication. If, for instance, you find that Captain Brace, who was +wrecked on the Azores in ‘52, was again waterlogged at sea in ‘61, and ran +into an iceberg off Newfoundland in ‘62, you begin, mayhap unfairly, to +couple him too closely with disaster, and you turn to the inquest over his +calamities to see what estimate was formed of his conduct. You learn, +possibly, that in one case he was admonished to more caution; in another, +honourably acquitted; and in the last instance smartly reprimanded, and +his certificate suspended for six months or a year. Now, though you have +never heard of Captain Brace in your life, nor are probably likely to +encounter him on sea or land, you cannot avoid a certain sense of relief +at the thought that so unlucky a commander, to say the least of it, is not +likely for a while to imperil more lives, and that the warning impressed +by his fate will also be a salutary lesson to many others. +</p> +<p> +It was in reflecting over this system of inquiry and sentence, that it +occurred to me what to admirable thing it would be to introduce the ‘Wreck +Register’ into politics, and to have a yearly record of all parliamentary +shipwrecks; all the bills that foundered, the motions that were stranded, +the amendments lost in a fog!—to be able to look back and reflect +over the causes of these disasters, investigating patiently how and why +and where they happened, and asking ourselves, Have we any better security +for the future? are we better acquainted with the currents, the soundings, +or the headlands? and, above all, what amount of blame, if any, is +attributable to the commander? +</p> +<p> +If we find, for instance, that the barque Young Reform, no matter how +carefully fitted out for sea—new sheathed and coppered, with +bran-new canvass, and a very likely crew on board—never leaves the +port that she does not come back crippled; and that old and experienced +captains, however confidently they may take the command at first, frankly +own that they’ll never put foot in her again, you very naturally begin to +suspect that there’s something wrong in her build. She is either too +unwieldy, like the Great Eastern, or she is too long to turn well, or she +requires such incessant repair; or, most fatal of all, she is entered for +a trade where nobody wants her; and therefore you resolve that, come what +will, you’ll avoid her. +</p> +<p> +What an inestimable benefit to the student of politics would a few such +brief notices be, instead of sending him, as we send him now, to the +dreary pages of Hansard! Imagine what a neat system of mnemonics would +grow out of the plan, when, instead of poring over interminable columns of +tiresome repetition, you had the whole narrative in few words—thus: +“Barque Reform, John Russell, commander, lost A.D. 1854 The Commissioners +seeing that this vessel was built for the most part of old materials, +totally unseaworthy, are of opinion that she ought not to have sailed at +all; and severely censure the commander, J. R, for foolhardiness and +obstinacy, he having, as it has been proved, acted in entire opposition to +‘his owners.’ On the pressing recommendation, however, of the owners, and +at the representation that E. has been long in the service, and is, +although too self-confident, a very respectable man, his certificate has +been restored to him.” + </p> +<p> +Lower down comes the entry:— +</p> +<p> +“The Young Reform.—This was a full-rigged ship, in great part +constructed on the lines of the barque lost in 1854. She sailed on the +28th February 1859, commanded by Captain Dizzy. No insurance could be +effected upon her on any terms, as the crew were chiefly apprentices, and +a very mutinous spirit aboard. She put back, completely crippled, after +three days’ stormy weather; and though the commander averred that some +enemies of his owners had laid down false buoys in the channel, he was not +listened to by the Commissioners, who withheld his certificate. Has never +been employed since, and his case by many considered a very hard one.” + </p> +<p> +Of course, all the small class of coasting vessels—railroad bills +and suchlike—suffer great losses. They are usually ill-found and +badly manned; but now and then we come upon curious escapes, where a +measure slips through unobserved, like a blockade-runner; and it is ten to +one in such cases they have that crafty old pilot Pam on board, who has +been more than fifty years at sea, and is as wide awake now as on his +first day. +</p> +<p> +What analogies press in on every hand! Look at the way each party bids for +and buys up the old materials of the other, fancying they have some +“lines” of their own that will turn out a clipper to beat everything. And +think of those “Sailors’ Homes,” where old salts chew their quids at ease—those +snug permanent Under-Secretaryships, those pleasant asylums in the +Treasury or the Mint! Picture to your mind the dark den in Downing Street, +where the Whipper-in confers in secret, and have you not at once before +you the shipping-office, and the crimp, and the “ordinary seaman” higgling +for an extra ten shillings of wages, or begging that his grog may not be +watered? And, last of all, see the old lighthouse-keepers, the veteran +First Clerks who serve every Administration, and keep their lamps bright +for all parties—a fine set of fellows in their way, though some +people will tell you that they have their favourites too, and are not so +brisk about the fog-signals if they don’t like the skipper. +</p> +<p> +I think I have done enough to show that such a work as I speak of would +redound to public benefit; and I only ask, if my suggestion be approved +of, that I may be remembered as the inventor, and not treated as Admiralty +Lords do the constructors of new targets, testing the metal and torturing +the man. Bear in mind, therefore, if the political ‘Wreck Register’ be +ever carried into execution, its device must be “O’Dowdius fecit.” + </p> +<p> +It might not be amiss, in the spirit that has suggested this improvement, +to organise in connection with the proceedings of the House a code of +signals on the plan of Admiral Fitzroy’s storm-signals, and which, from +the great tower, or some similar eminence, might acquaint members what +necessity for their presence existed. Fancy, for instance, the relief an +honourable gentleman would experience on seeing the fine-weather flag up, +and knowing thereby that something of no moment was being discussed—a +local railroad, a bill to enable some one to marry his grandmother, or a +measure for Ireland! Imagine the fog-signal flying, and see how +instantaneously it would he apprehended that D. G. was asking the noble +Lord at the head of the Government a question so intensely absurd as to +show a state of obscurity in his own faculties, in comparison to which fog +is a thin atmosphere! Or mark what excitement would be felt as the +storm-drum was hoisted, telling how the Government craft was being +buffeted and knocked about, and the lifeboat of the Opposition manned to +take charge of the ship if abandoned! What a mercy to those poor, +hard-worked, harassed, and wearied “whips”! what a saving there would be +in club-frequenting and in cab-hire! Now would the lounger, as he strolled +along Pall-Mall, say, “No need to hurry.” “light airs of wind from the +east” means a member for Galway and some balderdash about the Greeks. +“Thick weather in the Channel” implies troubles in Ireland—nothing +very new or interesting. “Dirty weather to the east’ard” would show +mischief in the Danubian provinces, and a general sense of unquiet in the +regions of the Sultan Redcliffe. These are hints which I have not +patented, and the chances are that “My Lords” will speedily adopt them, +and call them their own. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +FOREIGN CLUBS. +</h2> +<p> +How is it, will any one tell me, that all foreign Clubs are so ineffably +stupid? I do not suspect that we English are pre-eminent for social gifts; +and yet we are the only nation that furnishes clubable men. Frenchmen are +wittier, Germans profounder, Russians—externally at least—more +courteous and accommodating; and yet their Clubs are mere <i>tripots</i>—gambling +establishments; and, except play, no other feature of Club-life is to be +found in them. +</p> +<p> +To give a Club its peculiar “cachet”—its, so to say, trade-mark—you +require a class of men who make the Club their home, and whose interest it +is that all the internal arrangements should be as perfect, as well +ordered, and frictionless as may be. Good furniture, good servants, good +lighting, good cookery, well-adjusted temperature, and a well-chosen +cellar, are all essentials. In a word, the Club is to be the realisation +of what we all think so much of—comfort. Now, how very few +foreigners either understand or care for this! Every one who has travelled +abroad has seen the “Cercle,” or “L’Union,” or whatever its name be, where +men of the highest station—ministers, ambassadors, generals, and +suchlike—met to smoke and play whist, with a sanded floor, a dirty +attendance, and yet no one ever complained. They drank detestable beer, +and inhaled a pestilent atmosphere, and sat in draughts, without a thought +that there was anything to be remedied, or that human skill could or need +contrive anything better for their accommodation. +</p> +<p> +When these establishments were succeeded by the modern Club, with its +carpeted floor, silk hangings, ormolu lamps, and velvet couches, the +change was made in a pure spirit of Anglomanie; somebody had been over to +London, and come back full of the splendours of Pall-Mall. The work of +imitation, so far as decoration went, was not difficult. Indeed, in some +respects, in this they went beyond us, but there ended the success. The +Club abroad is a room where men gamble and talk of gambling, but no more; +it is not a Club. +</p> +<p> +For the working of the Club, as for that of constitutional government, a +special class are required. It, is the great masses of the middle ranks in +England, varied enough in fortune, education, habits, and tastes, but +still one in some great condition of a status, that supply the materials +for the work of a parliamentary government; and it is through the supply +of a large community of similar people that Clubs are maintained in their +excellence with us. +</p> +<p> +For the success of a Club you need a number of men perfectly incapable of +all life save such as the Club supplies; who repair to the Club, not alone +to dine and smoke and sup, and read their paper, but to interchange +thought in that blended half-confidence that the Club imparts; to hear the +gossip of the day told in the spirit of men of their own leanings; to +ascertain what judgments are passed on public events and public characters +by the people they like to agree with;—in fact, to give a sort of +familiar domestic tone to intercourse, suggesting the notion that the Club +is a species of sanctuary where men can talk at their ease. The men who +furnish this category with us are neither young nor old, they are the +middle-aged, retaining some of the spring and elasticity of youth, but far +more inclining to the solidity of riper years. If they frequent the Opera, +it is to a stall, not to the <i>coulisses</i>, they go. They are more +critical than they used to be about their dinners, and they have a +tendency to mix seltzer with their champagne. They have reached that +bourne in which egotism has become an institution; and by the transference +of its working to the Club, they accomplish that marvellous creation by +which each man sees himself and his ways and his wants and his instincts +reflected in a thousand varied shapes. +</p> +<p> +Now, there are two things no nation of the Continent possesses—Spring, +and middle-aged people. You may be young for a good long spell—some +have been known, by the judicious appliances of art, to keep on for sixty +years or so; but when you do pass the limit, there is no neutral territory—no +<i>mezzo termine</i>. Fall out of the Young Guard, and you must serve as a +Veteran. The levity and frivolity, the absence of all serious interest in +life, which mark the leisure classes abroad, follow men sometimes even to +extreme old age. The successive changes of temperament and taste which we +mark at home have no correlatives abroad. The foreigner inhabits at sixty +the same sort of world he did at six-and-twenty: he does not dance so +much, but he lingers in the ballroom, and he is just as keenly alive to +all the little naughty talk that amused him forty years ago, and folly as +much interested to hear that the world is just as false and as wicked as +it used to be when he was better able to contribute to its frailty and +wickedness. +</p> +<p> +Not one of these men, with their padded pectorals and dyed whiskers, will +admit that they are of an age to require comfort. They are ardent youths +all of them, turning night into day as of old, and no more sensible of +fatigue from late hours, hot rooms, and dissipation, than they were a +quarter of a century back. +</p> +<p> +Can you fancy anything less clubable than a set of men like this? You +might as well set before me the stale bon-bons and sugar-plums of a +dessert for a dinner, as ask me to take such people for associates and +companions. The tone of everlasting trifling disgraces even idleness; and +these men contrive in their lives to reverse the laws of physics, since it +is by their very levity that they fall. +</p> +<p> +The humoristic temperament is the soul of Club-life. It is the keen +appreciation of others in all their varied moods and shades of feeling +that imparts the highest enjoyment to that strange democracy, the Club; +and foreigners are immensely deficient in this element. They are +infinitely readier, smarter, and wittier than Englishmen. They will hit in +an epigram what we would take an hour to embrace in an argument; but for +the racy pleasure of seeing how such a man will listen to this, what such +another will say to that, how far individuality, in fact, will mould and +fashion the news of the day, and assimilate its mental food to its own +digestive powers, there is nothing like the Englishman—and +especially the Englishman of the Club. +</p> +<p> +There is nothing like Major Pendennis to be found from Trolhatten to +Messina, and yet Pendennis is a class with us; and it is in the +nicely-blended selfishness and complaisance, the egotism and obligingness, +that we find the purest element of Club-life. +</p> +<p> +The Parisian are the best—far and away the best—of all foreign +Clubs; best in their style of “get-up,” decoration, and arrangement, and +best also in tone and social manner. The St Petersburg Club is the most +gorgeous, the habits the most costly, the play the highest. It is not very +long since that a young Russian noble lost in one evening a sum equal to a +hundred thousand pounds. The Vienna Club is good in its own stiff German +way; but, generally speaking, German Clubs are very ill arranged, dirty, +and comfortless. The Italian are better. Turin, Naples, and Florence have +reasonably good Clubs. Home has nothing but the thing called the English +Club, a poorly-got-up establishment of small whist-players and low +“points.” + </p> +<p> +It is a very common remark, that costume has a great influence over +people’s conduct, and that the man in his shooting-jacket will +occasionally give way to impulsive outbursts that he had never thought of +yielding to in his white-cravat moments. Whether this be strictly true or +not, there is little doubt that the style and character of the room a man +sits in insensibly affects his manner and his bearing, and that the habits +which would not be deemed strange in the low-ceilinged chamber, with the +sanded floor and the “mutton lights,” would be totally indecorous in the +richly-carpeted room, a blaze of wax-light, and glittering with +decoration. Now this alternating between Club and <i>Café</i> spoils men +utterly. It engenders the worst possible style—a double manner. The +over-stiffness here and the over-ease there are alike faulty. +</p> +<p> +The great, the fatal defect of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of some +one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of presumed +superiority and affectation of “knowing the whole thing,” browbeat and +ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want of that +wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is possible. Of +public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any shape; and yet +it is by the unwritten judgments of such a tribunal that society is guided +in England, and the same law that discourages the bully supports and +encourages the timid, without either the one or the other having the +slightest power to corrupt the court, or coerce its decrees. Club-life is, +in a way, the normal school for parliamentary demeanour; and until +foreigners understand the Club, they will never comprehend the etiquette +of the “Chamber.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A HINT FOR C. S. EXAMINERS. +</h2> +<p> +I have frequently heard medical men declare that no test of a candidate’s +fitness to be admitted as a physician was equal to a brief examination at +the bedside of a sick man. To be able to say, “There is a patient; tell us +his malady, and what you will do for it,” was infinitely better than long +hours spent in exploring questions of minute anatomy and theoretical +physic. In fact, for all practical purposes, it was more than likely he +would be the best who would make the least brilliant figure in an +examination; and the man whose studies had familiarised him with +everything from Galen to John Hunter, would cut just as sorry a figure if +called on to treat a case of actual malady. +</p> +<p> +It cannot possibly be otherwise. All that mere examination can effect, is +to investigate whether an individual has duly prepared himself for the +discharge of certain functions; but it never can presume to ascertain +whether the person is one fitted by nature, by habit, by taste, or +inclination, for the duties before him. Why, the student who may answer +the most abstruse questions in anatomy, may himself have nerves so weak as +to faint at the sight of blood. The physician who has Paracelsus by heart, +may be so deficient in that tact of eye, or ear, or touch, as to render +his learning good for nothing. Half an hour in an hospital would, however, +test these qualities. You would at once see whether the candidate was a +mere mass of book-learning, or whether he was one skilled in the aspect of +disease, trained to observe and note all the indications of malady, and +able even instantaneously to pronounce upon the gravity of a case before +him. This is exactly what you want. No examination of a man’s biceps and +deltoid, the breadth of his chest or the strength of his legs, would tell +you whether he was a good swimmer—five minutes in deep water would, +however, decide the matter. +</p> +<p> +Now, I shall not multiply arguments to prove my position. I desire to be +practical in these “O’Dowdiana,” and I strive not to be prosy. What I +would like, then, is to introduce this system of—let us call it—Test-examination, +into the Civil Service. +</p> +<p> +I have the highest respect for the pedagogues of Burlington House. I think +highly of Ollendorff and I believe Colenso’s Arithmetic a great +institution. I venerate the men who invent the impossible questions; but I +own I have the humblest opinion of those who answer them. I’d as soon take +a circus-horse, trained to fire a pistol and sit down like a dog, to carry +me across a stiff country, as I’d select one of these fellows for an +employ which required energy, activity, or ready-wittedness. There is no +such inefficiency as self-sufficiency; and this is the very quality +instilled by the whole system. Ask the veterans of the Admiralty, the War +Office, the Board of Trade, and the Customs, and you will get but the same +report, that for thorough incompetency and inordinate conceit there is +nothing like the prize candidate of a Civil Service examination. Take my +word for it, you could not find a worse pointer than the poodle which +would pick you out all the letters of the alphabet. +</p> +<p> +What I should therefore suggest is, to introduce into the Civil Service +something analogous to this clinical examination; something that might +test the practical fitness of the candidate, and show, not whether the man +has been well prepared by a “grinder,” but whether he be a heaven-born +tide-waiter, one of Nature’s own gaugers or vice-consuls. +</p> +<p> +I know it is not easy to do this in all cases. There are employments, too, +wherein it is not called for. Mere clerkship, for instance, is an +occupation of such uniformity that a man is just like a sewing-machine, +and where, the work being adjusted to him, he performs it as a matter of +routine. There are, however, stations which are more or less provocative +of tact and ready-wittedness, and which require those qualities which +schoolmasters cannot give nor Civil Service examiners take away; such as +tact, promptitude, quickness in emergency, good-natured ease, patience, +and pluck above all. These, I say, are great gifts, and it would be well +if we knew how to find them. Let us take, by way of illustration, the +Messenger Service. These Foreign Office Mercuries, who travel the whole +globe at a pace only short of the telegraph, are wonderful fellows, and +must of necessity be very variously endowed. What capital sleepers, and +yet how easily awakened! What a deal of bumping must their heads be equal +to! What an indifference must they be endowed with to bad roads and bad +dinners, bad servants and bad smells! How patient they must be here—how +peremptory there! How they must train their stomach to long fastings, and +their skins to little soap! What can Civil Service examination discover of +all or any of these aptitudes? Is it written in Ollendorf, think you, how +many hours a man can sit in a caleche? Will decimal fractions support his +back or strengthen his lumbar vertebrae? What system of inquiry will +declare whether the weary traveller will not oversleep himself, or smash +the head of his postilion for not awaking him at a frontier? How will you +test readiness, endurance, politeness, familiarity with ‘Bradshaw’ and +Continental moneys? +</p> +<p> +I think I have hit on a plan for this, suggested to me, I frankly own, by +analogy with the clinical system. I would lay out the Green Park—it +is convenient to Downing Street, and well suited to the purpose—as a +map of Europe, marking out the boundaries of each country, and stationing +posts to represent capital cities. At certain frontiers I would station +representatives of the different nations as distinctly marked as I could +procure them: that is to say, I’d have a very polite Frenchman, a very +rude and insolent Prussian, a sulky Belgian, a roguish Italian, and an +extremely dirty Russian. Leicester Square could supply all. It being all +duly prepared, I’d start my candidate, with a heavy bag filled with its +usual contents of, let us say, a large box of cigars, a set of fire-irons, +twenty pots of preserved meats, a case of stuffed birds, four +cricket-balls, and a photograph machine, some blue-books, and a dozen of +blacking. I’d start him with this, saying simply, “Vienna, calling at +Stuttgart and Turin;” not a word more; and then I’d watch my man—how +he’d cross the Channel—how he’d cajole Moossoo—and whether +he’d make straight for the Rhine or get entangled in Belgian railroads. +I’d soon see how he dealt with the embarrassments of the roads and +relished the bad diet; and not alone would I test him by hardships and +hunger, fatigue and occasional upsets; but I’d try his powers of +self-resistance by surrounding him with dissolute young <i>attachés</i> +given to blind hookey and lansquenet. I’d have him invited to ravishing +orgies, and tempted in as many ways as St Anthony; and all these after +long privations. Then, I’d have him kept waiting either under a blazing +sun or a deep snow, or both alternately, to test his cerebral +organisation; and I’d try him with impure drinking water and damp sheets; +and, last of all, on his return, I’d make him pass his accounts before +some old monster of official savagery, who would repeatedly impugn his +honesty, call out for vouchers, and d—n his eyes. The man “who came +out strong” after all these difficulties I would accept as fully equal to +his responsibilities, for it would not be alone in intellectuals he had +been tested: the man’s temper, his patience, his powers of endurance, his +physical strength, his resources in emergency, his readiness to meet +difficulty, and, last of all, his self-devotion in matters of official +discipline, enabling him to combine with all the noble qualities of a man +the submissive attractions of a spaniel. +</p> +<p> +“Are you sure,” asks some one, “that all these graces and accomplishments +can be had for £500 per annum?” Not a doubt of it. It is a cheap age we +live in; and if you wanted a shipload of clever fellows for a new colony, +I’d engage to supply you on easier terms than with the same number of +gardeners or strong-boned housemaids. +</p> +<p> +Last of all, this scheme might be made no small attraction in this +economical era—what is called self-supporting; for the public might +be admitted to paid seats, whence they could learn European geography by a +new and easy method. “Families admitted at a reduced rate—Schools +and Seminaries half-price.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +OF SOME OLD DOGS IN OFFICE. +</h2> +<p> +Whenever the Budget comes on for discussion there are some three or four +speakers, of whom Mr Williams of Lambeth is sure to be one, ready to +suggest certain obvious economies by the suppression of some foreign +missions, such as Dresden, Hanover, Stuttgart, &c. They have not, it +is true, anything forcible or pungent to say on the subject; but as they +say the same thing every year, the chances are that, on the drip-drip +principle, they will at last succeed either in abolishing these +appointments, or reducing the salaries of those who hold them. +</p> +<p> +Ministers of course defend them, and Opposition leaders, who hope one day +to be Ministers, will also blandly say a word or two in their favour. For +my own part, I don’t think the country cares much about the matter, or +interests itself more deeply who drones away life at Hanover than who +occupies an apartment at Hampton Court. In each case it is a sort of +dowager asylum, where antiquated respectability may rest and be thankful. +</p> +<p> +The occupants of these snug berths, however far from England—at +least in so far as regards any knowledge of public opinion—are sure +to be greatly alarmed at these suggestions for their suppression. Poor +pigeons! if you only knew what a sorry sportsman it is who fires at you, +you’d never flutter a wing. Be of good heart, I say. Even if Williams’s +gun go off at all, the recoil may hurt himself, but it will never damage +you. Take my word for it, “the smooth-Bore of Lambeth never hit anything +yet.” This assurance of mine—I have given it scores of times +personally—never gives the comfort that it ought; for these timid +souls, bullied by long dealings with the Office—tormented, as Mr +Carlyle would say, with much First Clerk—grow to be easily +panic-stricken, and have gloomy nightmares of a time when there shall be +no more life-certificates nor any quarter-days. +</p> +<p> +I cannot enter into their feelings, but I suppose they are reasonable. I +conclude that one would like to have a salary, and to be paid it +punctually. Self-preservation is a law that we all recognise; and some of +these officials may possibly feel that there is no other line of life open +to them, and that, if you take away from them their mission, they will be +poor indeed. You will think me perhaps as absurd as Mrs Nickleby, who +connected roast-pork and canaries, if I confess to you that it is an old +mastiff that my father had when I was a boy that brought these people very +forcibly to my mind. Poor old Turco!—I can’t know how old he was, +but he was nearly blind, exceedingly feeble, intensely stupid, and much +given to sleep. Still, whenever any one of the family—he didn’t mind +the servants—would go out to the stableyard, he’d rouse himself up, +and, affecting to believe it was an intruder, he’d give a fierce bark or +two, when, discovering his error, he’d wag his tail and go back to his den—all +this being evidently done to show that he was as vigilant as ever—a +sort of protest, that said, “Don’t believe one word about my being blind +and toothless, still less flatter yourself that the place is secure. It +requires all my activity and watchfulness to protect; but go back in +peace, I’m ready for them.” + </p> +<p> +Now, this is exactly what Turco is doing at Munich and Dresden. Whenever +Williams comes out with a hint that he is not wanted, Turco makes a +furious noise, rushes here and there after a turkey-cock if he can find +one, and thoroughly satisfies the family that he is an invaluable beast, +and could not be dispensed with. +</p> +<p> +Like Turco, too, who always barked, or tried to bark, whenever he heard +any noise or commotion going on outside, these people are sure to make an +uproar if there be any excitement in their neighbourhood. No sooner did +Schleswig-Holstein begin to trouble the world, than despatches began to +pour in from places that a few weeks before even the messengers scarcely +knew on the map. They related interviews with unknown princes and +unheard-of ministers, and spoke of hopes, fears, wishes, and anxieties of +people who had not, to our appreciation, a more palpable existence than +the creatures of the heathen mythology! Much grumbling, and sore of ear, +Williams goes back to his kennel. +</p> +<p> +“What! suppress the mission at Hohen-Schwein-stadt, when I hold here,” + exclaims the Minister, “the admirable report of our diplomatic agent on +the state of public feeling in that important capital? Will the honourable +gentleman, to whose long experience of foreign politics I am ready to bow, +inform me how the relations of England with the Continent are to be +carried on unless through the intervention of such appointments? Can the +honourable member for ———” (a shipowner, perhaps) “carry +on his great and important business without agencies? Can the honourable +gentleman himself” (a brewer) “be certain that the invigorating and +admirable produce of his manufacture will attain the celebrity that it +merits, or become the daily beverage of countless thousands in the +tropics, unassisted by those aids which to commerce or diplomacy are alike +indispensable?” This is very like the Premier’s eloquence. I almost think +I am listening to him, and even see the smile of triumph with which he +appeals at the peroration to his friends to cheer him. Turco is safe this +time; and, better still, he need never bark again till next Easter and +another Budget. +</p> +<p> +It is a very curious thing—it opens a whole realm of speculation—how +small and few are the devices of humanity. We fancy we are progressing +simply because we change. We give up alchemy, and we believe in medicine; +we scout witchcraft, and we take to spirit-rapping; and instead of +monasteries and monks, we have missions and plenipotentiaries. If it be a +fine thing to die for one’s country, it’s a pleasant one to live for it; +to know that you inhabit an impenetrable retreat, which no “Own +Correspondents” ever invade, and where, if it was not for Williams, no +sense of fear or alarm could come to disturb the tranquil surface of a +stagnant existence. +</p> +<p> +It is astonishing, too, what a wholesome dread and apprehension of England +and English power is maintained through the means of these small legations +in secluded spots of the Continent, in remote little duchies, without +trade or commerce, far away from the sea, where no one ever heard of +imports or exports, and the name of Gladstone had never been spoken. In +such places as these, a meddlesome old envoy, with plenty of spare time on +hand, often gets us thoroughly hated, always referring to England as a +sort of court of last appeal on every question, social, moral, religious, +or political, and dimly alluding to Lord Palmerston as a kind of +Rhadamanthus, whose judgments fall heavily on ill-doers. +</p> +<p> +The helpless hopeless condition of small states in all such conflicts was +actually pitiable. The poor little trembling King Charles dog in the cage +of the lion, and who felt that he only lived on sufferance, was the type +of them. I remember an incident which occurred some years ago at the Bagni +di Lucca, which will illustrate what I mean. An English stranger at one of +the hotels, after washing his hands, threw his basinful of soap-and-water +out of the window just as the Grand-duke was passing, deluging his +imperial highness from head to foot. The stranger hurried at once to the +street, and, throwing himself before the dripping sovereign, made the most +humble and apologetic excuses for his act; but the Grand-duke stopped him +short at once, saying, “There, there! say no more of it: don’t mention the +matter to any one, or I shall get into a correspondence with Palmerston, +and be compelled to pay a round sum to you for damages!” + </p> +<p> +After all, one could say for these small posts in diplomacy what, I think +it was Croker said for certain rotten boroughs in former days, “If you had +not had such posts, you would have lost the services of a number of able +and instructive men, who, entering public life by the small door, are sure +to leave it by the grand entrance.” + </p> +<p> +These small missions are very often charming centres of society in places +one would scarcely hope for it; and from these little-known legations, +every now and then, issue men whom it would not be safe for Williams to +bark at, and whom, even if he were rabid, he would not bite. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. +</h2> +<p> +What a number of ingenious reasons have been latterly given for the +decline of the Drama, and the decrease of interest now felt for the stage. +Some aver that people are nowadays too cultivated, too highly educated, to +take pleasure in a play; others opine that the novel has supplanted the +drama; others again declare that it is the prevalence of a religious +sentiment on the subject that has damaged theatrical representation. For +my own part, I take a totally different view of the subject. My notion is +this: the world will never pay a high price for an inferior article, if it +can obtain a first-rate one for nothing; in other words, people are come +to the conclusion that the best actors are not to be found on the boards +of the Haymarket or the Adelphi, but in the world at large—at the +Exchange, in the parks, on railroads or river-steamers, at the soirées of +learned societies, in Parliament, at Civic dinners or Episcopal +visitations. +</p> +<p> +Why has the masquerade ceased to interest and amuse? Simply because no +travestie of costume, no change of condition, is so strikingly ludicrous +as what we see on every side of us. The illiterate man with the revenue of +a prince; the millionaire who cannot write his name, and whom yesterday we +saw as a navvy; the Emperor who, a few years back, lodged over the +bootmaker’s; the out-at-elbow followers of imperial fortune, now raised to +the highest splendour, and dispensing hospitalities more than regal in +magnificence;—these are the spectacles which make the masquerade a +tiresome mockery; and it is exactly because we get the veritable article +for nothing that we neither seek playhouse nor ballroom, but go out into +the streets and highways for our drama, and take our Kembles and Macreadys +as we find them at taverns, at railway-stations, on the grassy slopes of +Malvern, or the breezy cliffs of Brighton. Once admit that the wild-flower +plucked at random has more true delicacy of tint and elegance of form, and +there is no going back to the tasteless mockery of artificial wax and +wire. The broad boards of real life are the true stage; and he who cannot +find matter of interest or amusement in the piece performed, may rely upon +it that the cause is in himself, and not in the drama. Some will say, The +world is just what it always was. People are no more fictitious now than +at any other time. There was always, and there will be always, a certain +amount of false pretension in life which you may, if you like, call +acting. And to this I demur <i>in toto</i>, and assert that as every age +has its peculiar stamp of military glory, or money-seeking, or religious +fervour, or dissipation, or scientific discovery, or unprofitable +trifling, so the mark of our own time will be found to be its thorough +unreality. Every one is in travestie. Selfishness is got up to play +philanthropy, apathy to perform zeal, intense self-seeking goes in for +love of country; and, to crown all, one of the most ordinary and vulgar +minds of all Europe now directs and disposes of the fate and fortunes of +all Christendom. +</p> +<p> +Daily habit familiarises us with the acting of the barrister. His generous +trustfulness, his love of all that is good, his scorn for Vice, his noble +pity, and the withering sarcasm with which he scathes the ill-doer, we +know, can be had, in common cases, for ten pounds ten shillings; and five +times as much will enlist in our service the same qualities in a less +diluted form; while, by quadrupling the latter sum, we arrive at a +self-devotion before which brotherly love pales, and old friendships seem +a cold and selfish indifferentism. We had contracted for this man’s +acuteness, his subtlety, his quick perception, and his ready-wittedness; +but he gives, besides these, his hearty trustfulness, his faith in our +honour, his conviction in our integrity: he knows our motives; he has been +inside our bosom, and comes out to declare that all is pure and spotless +there; and he does this with a trembling lip and a swelling throat, the +sweat on his brow and the tear in his eye, it being all the while a matter +of mere accident that he had not been engaged on the opposite side, and +all the love he bears us been “briefed” for the defendant. +</p> +<p> +Look at the physician, too. Who is it, then, enters the sick-room with the +footfall of a cat, and draws our curtain as gently as a zephyr might stir +a rose-leaf, whose tender accents fall softly on our ear, and who asks +with the fondest anxiety how we have passed the night? Who is it that +cheers, consoles, encourages, and supports us? Who associates himself with +our sufferings, and winces under our pain, and as suddenly rallies as we +grow better, and joins in our little sickbed drolleries? Who does all +these?—a consummate actor, who takes from thirty to forty daily +“benefits,” and whose performances are paid at a guinea a scene! +</p> +<p> +The candidate on the hustings, the Government commissioner on his tour of +inspection, the vicar-general of my lord bishop, the admiral on his +station, the minister at the grand-ducal Court, are all good specimens of +common acting—parts which can be filled with very ordinary +capacities, and not above the powers of everyday artists. They conjugate +but one verb, and on its moods and tenses they trade to the end of the +chapter. These men never soar into the heroic regions of the drama; they +infuse no imagination into their parts. They are as unpoetical as a +lord-in-waiting. There are but two stops on their organ. They are bland, +or they are overbearing; they are either beautifully gentle, or they are +terrible in their wrath. +</p> +<p> +It is a strange feature of our age that the highest walk of the real-life +drama should be given up to the men of money, and that Finance should be +the most suggestive of all that is creative, fanciful, and imaginative. +What a commentary on our era! It is no paradox I pronounce here. The +greatest actor I ever saw, the most consummate artist, was a railroad +contractor; that is, he had more persuasiveness, more of that magnetic +captivation which subordinates reason to mere hope, than any one I ever +listened to. He scorned the pictorial, he despised all landscape effects, +he summoned to his aid no assistance from gorge or mountain, no +deep-bosomed wood or bright eddying river; he was a man of culverts and +cuttings, of quartz and limestone and flint; with a glance he could +estimate traffic, and with the speed of the lightning-flash tell you what +dividend could come of the shares. +</p> +<p> +It was, however, in results that he was grandiose. Hear him on the theme +of a completed line, a newly-opened tunnel, or a finished viaduct—it +was a Poem! Such a picture of gushing beatitude as he could paint! It was +the golden age—prosperity, happiness, and peace on every side; the +song of the husbandman at his plough mingling with the hum of the village +school; the thousand forms of civilisation, from cheap sugar to penny +serials, that would permeate the land; the peasant studying social science +over his tea, and the railway-guard supping his “cheap Gladstone” as he +speculated on the Antiquity of Man. Never was such an Eden on earth, and +all to be accomplished at the cost of a mere million or two, with a +“limited liability.” + </p> +<p> +With what a grand contempt this great man talked of the people who busied +themselves in the visionary pursuits of politics or literature, or who +devoted themselves to the Arts or Field-sports! With him earthworks were +the grandest achievements of humanity, and there was no such civiliser as +a parliamentary train. Had he been simply an enthusiast, that fatal false +logic that <i>will</i> track enthusiasm—however it be guided—would +have betrayed him: but the man was not an enthusiast—he was a great +actor; and while to capitalists and speculators he appealed by all the +seductive inducements of profits, premiums, and preference shares, to the +outer and unmoneyed world he made his approaches by a beautiful and +touching philanthropy. +</p> +<p> +Did he believe in all this? Heaven knows. He talked and acted as if he +did; and though, when I last saw him, he had smashed his banker, ruined +his company, and beggared the shareholders, he was high-hearted, hopeful, +and buoyant as ever. It was a general who had lost a battle, but he meant +to recruit another army. It was some accidental rumour of a war—some +stupid disturbance on the Danube or the Black Sea—that had +frightened capital and made “money tight.” The scheme itself was a +glorious project—an unrivalled investment. Never was there such a +paying line—innumerable towns, filled with a most migratory +population, ever on the move, and only needing to learn the use of certain +luxuries to be constantly in demand of them. +</p> +<p> +With a good harvest, however, and money easy, if Lord Russell could only +be commonly civil to the Continental Cabinets, all would go well yet. The +bounties of Providence would be diffused over the earth—food would +be cheap, taxation reduced, labour plenty, and “then, sir, these worthy +people shall have their line, if I die for it.” + </p> +<p> +I find it very hard to believe in Borneo’s love or Othello’s jealousy. I +cannot, let me do all that I will, accept them as real, even in their most +impassioned moments, and yet this other man holds me captive. If I had a +hundred pounds in the world, I’d put it into his scheme, and I really feel +that, in not borrowing the money to make a venture, I am a poor-spirited +creature that has not the courage to win his way to fortune. +</p> +<p> +And yet these fellows have no aid from dress or make-up. They are not +surrounded with all the appliances that aid a deception. They come to us +in their everyday apparel, and, mayhap, at inopportune moments, when we +are weary, or busy, or out of sorts, to talk of what we are not interested +in, and have no relish for. With their marvellous tact they conquer apathy +and overcome repugnance; they gain a hearing, and they obtain at least +time for more. There is much in what they say that we feel no interest in; +but now and then they <i>do</i> touch a chord that vibrates within us; and +when they do so, it is like magic the instinct with which they know it. It +was that Roman camp, that lead-mine, that trout-stream, or that +paper-mill, did the thing; and the rogue saw it as plainly as if he had a +peep into our brain, and could read our thoughts like a printed book. +These then, I say, are the truly great actors, who walk the boards of life +with unwritten parts, who are the masters of our emotions, even to the +extent of taking away our money, and who demand our trustfulness as a +right not to be denied them. +</p> +<p> +Now, what a poor piece of mockery, of false tinsel and fringe and folly +and pretence, is your stage-player beside one of these fellows! Who is +going to sit three weary hours at the Haymarket, bored by the assumed +plausibility of the actor, when the real, the actual, the positive thing +that he so poorly simulates is to be met on the railroad, at the station, +in the club, on the chain-pier, or the penny steamer? Is there any one, I +ask, who will pay to see the plaster-cast when he can behold the marble +original for nothing? You say, “Are you going to the masquerade?” and I +answer, “I am at it.” <i>Circumspice!</i> Look at the mock royalties +hunting (Louis XIV. fashion) in the deep woods of Fontainebleau. Look at +haughty lords and ladies—the haughtiest the earth has ever seen—vying +in public testimonies of homage—as we saw a few days ago—to +the very qualities that, if they mean anything, mean the subversion of +their order. Look at the wasteful abundance of a prison dietary, and the +laudable economy which half-starves the workhouse. Look at the famished +curate, with little beyond Greek roots to support him, and see the +millionaire, who can but write his name, with a princely fortune; and do +you want Webster or Buckstone to give these “characters” more point? +</p> +<p> +Will you take a box for the ‘Comedy of Errors,’ when you can walk into the +Chancery Court for nothing? Will you pay for ‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ +when a friendly order can admit you to the House? And as for a ‘New Way to +Pay Old Debts,’ commend me to Commissioner Goulburn in Bankruptcy; while +‘Love’s Last Shift’ is daily performed at the Court of Probate, under the +distinguished patronage of Judge Wills. Is there any need to puzzle one’s +head over the decline of the drama, then? You might as well ask if a +moderate smoker will pay exorbitantly for dried cabbage-leaves, when he +can have prime Cubans for the trouble of taking them! +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +PENSIONS FOR GOVERNORS. +</h2> +<p> +I do not remember ever to have read more pompons nonsense than was talked +a few days ago in Parliament on the subject of pensions for retired +colonial governors. +</p> +<p> +On all ordinary occasions the strongest case a man can have with the +British public is to be an ill-used man—that is to say, if you be a +man of mark, or note, or station. To be ill-used, as one poor, friendless, +and ignoble, is no more than the complement of your condition. It is in +the fitness of things that pauperism, which we English have declared to be +illegal, should neither be fondled nor caressed. To be ill-used profitably +there must be something pictorial in your case; it must have its reliefs +of light as well as shade. There must be little touches, a bright “has +been,” sunny spots of a happy past Without the force of these contrasts, +there is no possibility of establishing the grand grievance which is +embodied in ill-usage. +</p> +<p> +Now, Mr B. C. who brought on this motion was a sorry artist, and the whole +sum and substance of his case was, that as we secured the services of +eminent and able men, we ought to pay them “properly.” Why, in that one +word “properly” lay the whole question. What constitutes proper payment? +Every career in life carries with it some circumstance either of advantage +or the reverse, which either compensates for the loss of a material +benefit, or is requited by some addition of a tangible profit. The +educated man who accepts three hundred a-year in the Church is not +recompensed, or considered to be recompensed, by this miserable pittance. +It is in the respect, the influence, the power, and the reverence that +attach to his calling he is rewarded. Place a layman in the parish beside +him with that income, and mark the difference of their stations! The same +of the soldier. Why or how does seven-and-sixpence diurnally represent one +the equal of the best in any society of the land? Simply by a conventional +treaty, by which we admit that a man, at the loss of so much hard cash, +may enjoy a station which bears no imaginable proportion to his means. +</p> +<p> +On the other hand, there are large communities who, addressing themselves +to acquire wealth and riches, care very little for the adventitious +advantages of social state. As it is told of Theodore Hook, at a Lord +Mayor’s feast, that he laid down his knife and fork at the fifth course, +and declared “he would take the rest out in money;” so there are scores of +people who “go in” for the actual and the real. They have no sympathy with +those who “take out” their social status partly in condition partly in +cash, as is the case with the curate and the captain. +</p> +<p> +Almost every man, at his outset in life, makes some computation of how +much his career can pay him in money, how much in the advantages of rank +and station. The bailiff on the estate makes very often a far better +income than the village doctor; but do you believe that Æsculapius would +change places with him for all that? Is not the unbought deference to his +opinion, the respect to his acquirements, the obedience to his counsel, +something in the contract he makes with the world? Does he not recognise, +every day of his life, that he is not measured by the dimensions of the +small house he resides in, or the humble qualities of the hack he rides, +but that he has an acceptance in society totally removed from every +question of his fortune? +</p> +<p> +In the great lottery we call life, the prizes differ in many things +besides degree. If the man of high ambition determine to strain every +nerve to attain a station of eminence and power, it may be that his +intellectual equal, fonder of ease, more disposed to tranquillity, will +settle down with a career that at the very best will only remove him a +step above poverty; and shall we dare to say that either is wrong? My +brother the Lord Chancellor is a great man, no doubt. The mace is a +splendid club, and the woolsack a most luxurious sofa; but as I walk my +village rounds of a summer’s morning, inhaling perfume of earth and plant, +following with my eye the ever-mounting lark, have I not a lighter heart, +a freer step, a less wearied head? Have I not risen refreshed from sleep? +not nightmared by the cutting sarcasms of some noble earl on my fresh-gilt +coronet, some slighting allusion to my “newness in that place”? Depend +upon it, the grand law of compensation which we recognise throughout +universal nature extends to the artificial conditions of daily life, and +regulates the action and adjusts the inequalities of our social state. +</p> +<p> +What is a viceroy or a colonial governor? A man of eminence and ability, +doubtless, but who is satisfied to estrange himself from home and country, +and occupy himself with cares and interests totally new and strange to +him, for some five or fifteen thousand pounds a-year, plus a great variety +of other things, which to certain minds unquestionably represent high +value—the—station, the power, the prestige of a great +position, with all its surroundings of deference and homage. Large as his +salary is, it is the least distinctive feature of his high office. In +every attribute of rank the man is a king. In his presence the wisest and +the most gifted do no more than insinuate the words of their wisdom, and +beauty retires curtsying, after a few commonplaces from his lips. Why, +through all the employments of life, who ever attains to the like of this? +His presence is an honour, his notice is fame. To be his guest is a +distinction for a day; to be his host is to be illustrious for a lifetime. +Are these things nothing? Ask the noble earl as he sits in his howdah; ask +my lord marquis as he rides forth with a glittering staff. +</p> +<p> +Did any one, even Mr B. C. himself, ever imagine that Mr Macready ought to +be pensioned after he had played Cardinal Wolsey? Was it ever proposed, +even in Parliament, that Mr Kean should have a retiring allowance when he +had taken off his robes as Henry IV.? These eminent men were, however, +just as real, just as actual, during their brief hour on the stage, as His +Excellency the Viceroy or the “Lord High.” They were there under a +precisely similar compact. They had to represent a state which had no +permanence, and a power that had no stability. They were to utter words +which would be ridiculous from their lips to-morrow, and to assume a port +and bearing that must be abandoned when they retired to change their +clothes. +</p> +<p> +It is one of my very oldest memories as a boy that I dined in company with +Charles Kemble. There was a good deal of talking, and a fair share of +wine-drinking. In the course of the former came the question of the French +Revolution of ‘30, and the conduct of the French King on that occasion. +Kemble took no part in the discussion; he listened, or seemed to listen, +filled his glass and emptied it, but never spoke. At last, when each +speaker appeared to have said his say, and the subject approached +exhaustion, the great actor, with the solemnity of a judge in a charge, +and with a grand resonance of voice, said: “I’ll tell you how it is, sirs; +Charles X. has forfeited a—a—a right good engagement!” And +that was exactly the measure that he and all his tribe took, and are now +taking, of kings and rulers—and let us profit by it. The colonial +king has his “engagement;” it is defined exactly like the actor’s. He is +to play certain parts, and for so many nights; he is to strut his hour in +the very finest of properties, and is sure, which the actor is not always, +of a certain amount of applause. No living creature believes seriously in +him, far less he himself, except, perhaps, in some impassioned moment or +other like that in which I once knew Othello so far carried away that he +flung Iago into the orchestra. +</p> +<p> +Pension Carlisle, pension Storks, if you will; but be just as well as +generous, and take care that you provide for Paul Bedford and Buckstone. +</p> +<p> +In Archbishop Whately’s ‘Historic Doubts,’ we find that the existence of +the first emperor can be disproven by the very train of argument employed +to deny the apostles. Let me suggest the converse of this mode of +reasoning, and ask, Is there a word you can say for the Viceroy you cannot +equally say for the actor? Have you an argument for him who governs St +Helena that will not equally apply to him who struts his hour at the +Haymarket? +</p> +<p> +I perceive that the writer of a letter to the ‘Times’ advocates the claims +of the ex-Governors, on the plausible plea that it is exactly the very men +who best represent the dignity of the station—best reflect the +splendour of the Sovereign—who come back poor and penniless from the +high office: while the penurious Governor, who has given dissatisfaction +everywhere, made the colony half rebellious by his narrow economies, and +degraded his station by contemptible savings, comes back wealthy and +affluent—self-pensioned, in fact, and independent. +</p> +<p> +To meet this end, the writer suggests that the Crown, as advised thereon, +should have a discretionary power of rewarding the well-doer and refusing +the claim of the unmeriting, which would distinctly separate the case of +the worthy servant of the Sovereign from that of him who only employed his +office to enrich himself. +</p> +<p> +There is a certain shallow—it is a very shallow—plausibility +about this that attracts at first sight; and there would unquestionably be +some force in it, if dinner-giving and hospitalities generally were the +first requisites of a colonial ruler; but I cannot admit this. I cannot +believe that the man who administers India or Canada, or even Jamaica or +Barbadoes, is only an expatriated Lord Mayor. I will not willingly consent +to accept it as qualification for a high trust that a man has a good cook +and an admirable cellar, and an ostentatious tendency to display the +merits of both. Mind, I am no ascetic who say this: I like good dinners; I +like occasionally—only occasionally though—very good dinners. +I feel with a clever countryman who said he liked being asked out to dine, +“it was flattering, and it was nourishing;” but with all this I should +never think of “elevating my host” to the dignity of high statesmanship on +the mere plea of his hospitality. +</p> +<p> +We have had some able men in our dependencies who were not in the least +given to social enjoyments, who neither understood them for themselves nor +thought of them for others—Sir Charles Napier, for instance. And +who, let me ask, would have lost the services of such a man to the State, +because he had not the tastes of a Sir William Curtis, nor could add a +“Cubitt” to his stature? +</p> +<p> +All discretionary powers are, besides, abuses. They are the snares and +pitfalls of official jobbery; and there would be no end of bickering and +complaining on the merits of this and the shortcomings of that man. Not to +say that such a system as this writer recommends would place a Government +in the false position of rewarding extravagance and offering a premium for +profusion, and holding up for an example to our colonial fellow-subjects +the very habits and tastes which are the bane and destruction of young +communities. +</p> +<p> +Can any one imagine a Cabinet Council sitting to determine whether the +ex-Governor of St Helena had or had not entertained the officers of the +509th Foot on their return from India, or whether he of Heligoland had +really fed his family on molluscs during all the time of his +administration, and sold the shells as magnesia? There could be but one +undeniable test of an ex-Governor’s due claim to a pension, since on the +question of a man’s hospitalities evidence would vary to eternity. There +are those whose buttermilk is better than their neighbours’ bordeaux. I +repeat, there could be but one test as to the claim; and as we read in a +police sheet, as a sufficient ground for arrest, the two words, “Drunk and +Disorderly,” so should any commission on pensions accept as valid grounds +for a pension, “Insolvent and a Bankrupt.” + </p> +<p> +To talk of these men as ill-used, or their case as a hard one, is simply +nonsense! You might as well say that the man you asked to dinner to-day +has a legitimate ground of complaint against you because you have not +invited him to breakfast to-morrow. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +A GRUMBLE. +</h2> +<p> +I wonder is the world as pleasant as it used to be? Not to myself, of +course—I neither ask nor expect it; but I mean to those who are in +the same position to enjoy it as I was—years ago. I am delicate +about the figures, for Mrs O’D. occasionally reads these sketches, and +might feel a wifelike antipathy to a record of this nature. I repeat—I +wonder is life as good fun as it was when I made my first acquaintance +with it? My impression is that it is not. I do not presume to say that all +the same elements are not as abundant as heretofore. There are young +people, and witty people, and, better, there are beautiful people, in +abundance. There are great houses as of yore, maintained, perhaps, with +even more than bygone splendour: the horses are as good—the dogs as +good—the trout-streams as well stocked—the grouse as abundant—foreign +travel is more easy—all travel is more facile—there are more +books and more illustrated newspapers; and yet, with all these advantages—very +tangible advantages too—I do not think the present occupants make +the house as pleasant as their fathers did, and for the very simple +reason, that they never try. +</p> +<p> +Indifferentism is the tone of the day. No one must be eager, pleased, +displeased, interested, or anxious about anything. Life is to be treated +as a tiresome sort of thing, but which is far too much beneath one to be +thought of seriously—a wearisome performance, which good manners +require you should sit out, though nothing obliges you to applaud or even +approve of it. This is the theory, and we have been most successful in +reducing it to practice. We are immensely bored, and we take good care so +shall be our neighbour. Just as we have voted that there is nothing new, +nothing strange, nothing amusing, we defy any one to differ with us, on +pain of pronouncing him vulgar. North American Indians are not more +case-hardened against any show of suffering under torture than are our +well-bred people against any manifestation of showing pleasure in +anything. “It wasn’t bad,” is about the highest expression of our praise; +and I doubt if we would accord more to heaven—if we got there. The +grand test of your modern Englishman is, to bear any amount of amusement +without wincing: no pleasure is to wring a smile from him, nor is any +expectancy to interest, or any unlooked-for event to astonish. He would +admit that “the Governor”—meaning his father—was surprised; he +would concede the fact, as recording some prejudice of a bygone age. As +the tone of manners and observance has grown universal, so has the very +expression of the features. They are intensely like each other. We are +told that a shepherd will know the actual faces of all the sheep in his +flock, distinguishing each from each at a glance. I am curious to know if +the Bishop of London knows even the few lost sheep that browse about +Rotten Eow of an afternoon, and who are so familiar to us in Leech’s +sketches. There they are—whiskered, bearded, and bored; fine-looking +animals in their way, but just as much living creatures in ‘Punch’ as they +are yonder. It is said that they only want the stimulus of a necessity, +something of daring to tempt, or something of difficulty to provoke them, +to be just as bold and energetic as ever their fathers were. I don’t deny +it. I am only complaining of the system which makes sheep of them, reduces +life to a dreary table-land, making the stupid fellows the standard, and +coming down to their level for the sake of uniformity. Formerly they who +had more wit, more smartness, more worldly knowledge than their +neighbours, enjoyed a certain pre-eminence; the flash of their +agreeability lighted up the group they talked in, and they were valued and +sought after. Now the very homage rendered, even in this small way, was at +least a testimony that superiority was recognised and its claims admitted. +What is the case now? Apathy is excellence, and the nearest approach to +insensibility is the greatest eminence attainable. +</p> +<p> +In the Regency, when George IV. was Prince, the clever talkers certainly +abounded; and men talk well or ill exactly as there is a demand for the +article. The wittiest conversationalist that ever existed would be +powerless in a circle of these modern “Unsurprised ones.” Their vacant +self-possession would put down all the Grattans and Currans and Jeffreys +and Sydney Smiths in the world. I defy the most brilliant, the readiest, +the most genial of talkers to vivify the mass of inert dulness he will +find now at every dinner and in every drawing-room. +</p> +<p> +The code of modern manners is to make ease the first of all objects; and, +in order that the stupidest man may be at his ease, the ablest is to be +sacrificed. He who could bring vast stores of agreeability to the common +stock must not show his wares, because there are a store of incapables who +have nothing for the market. +</p> +<p> +They have a saying in Donegal, that “the water is so strong it requires +two whiskies;” but I would ask what amount of “spirits” would enliven this +dreariness; what infusion of pleasantry would make Brown and Jones +endurable when multiplied by what algebraists call an <i>x</i>—an +unknown quantity—of other Browns and Joneses? +</p> +<p> +We are constantly calling attention to the fact of the influence exerted +over morals and manners in France by the prevailing tone of the lighter +literature, and we mark the increasing licentiousness that has followed +such works as those of Eugene Sue and the younger Dumas. Let us not forget +to look at home, and see if, in the days when the Waverleys constituted +almost all our lighter reading, the tone of society was not higher, the +spirit more heroic, the current of thought and expression purer, than in +these realistic days, when we turn for amusement to descriptions of every +quaint vulgarity that makes up the life of the boarding-house or the +strolling theatre. +</p> +<p> +The glorious heroism of Scott’s novels was a fine stream to turn into the +turbid river of our worldliness and money-seeking. It was of incalculable +benefit to give men even a passing glance of noble devotion, high-hearted +courage, and unsullied purity. +</p> +<p> +I can remember the time when, as freshmen in our first year, we went about +talking to each other of ‘Ivanhoe’ and ‘Kenilworth;’ and I can remember, +too, when the glorious spirit of those novels had so possessed us, that +our romance elevated and warmed us to an unconscious imitation of the +noble thoughts and deeds we had been reading. +</p> +<p> +Smile if you like at our boyish enthusiasm, it was better than the mocking +spirit engendered by all this realism, or the insensate craving after +stimulus taught by sensation novels. +</p> +<p> +Now, I am not old enough to remember the great talkers of the time when +George III. was King, or those who made Carlton House famous; but I +belonged to a generation where these men were remembered, and where it was +common enough to hear stories of their Attic nights, those <i>noctes +cænæque deorum</i> which really in brilliancy must have far transcended +anything that Europe could boast of conversational power. The youth of the +time I speak of were full of these traditions. “If I am not the rose, I +grew near one,” was no foolish boast; and certainly there was both in the +tone of conversation and the temper of society a sentiment that showed how +the great men had influenced their age, and how, even after their sun had +gone down, a warm tint remained to remind the world of the glorious +splendour that had departed. +</p> +<p> +Being an Irishman, it is to Ireland I must go for my illustration, and it +is my pride to remember that I have seen some of those who were, in an age +of no common convivial excellence, amongst the first and the greatest. +They are gone, and I may speak of them by name—Lord Plunkett, the +Chief-Justice Bushe, Mr Casey, Sir Philip Crampton, Barré Beresford—I +need not go on. I have but to recall the leading men at the bar, to make +up a list of the most brilliant talkers that ever delighted society. Nor +was the soil exhausted with these; there came, so to say, a second crop—a +younger order of men—less versed in affairs, it is true, less imbued +with that vigorous conviviality that prevailed in their fathers’ days—but +of these I must not speak, for they have now grown up to great dignities +and stations, they have risen to eminence and honour and repute, and might +possibly be ashamed if it were known that they were once so agreeable. Let +me, however, record one who is no more, but who possessed the charm of +companionship to a degree I never knew equalled in all my varied +experiences of life,—one who could bring the stores of a +well-stocked mind, rich in scholarship, to bear upon any passing incident, +blended with the fascination of a manner that was irresistible. Highly +imaginative, and with a power of expression that was positively +marvellous, he gave to ordinary conversation an elevation that actually +conferred honour on those who were associated with it; and high above all +these gifts and graces, a noble nature, generous, hopeful, and confiding. +With an intellect that challenged any rivalry, he had, in all that touched +worldly matters, the simplicity of a child. To my countrymen it is +needless I should tell of whom I speak; to others, I say his name was +Mortimer O’Sullivan. The mellow cadence of his winning voice, the beam of +his honest eye, the generous smile that never knew scorn, are all before +me as I write, and I will write no more. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +OF OUR BROTHERS BEYOND THE BORDER. +</h2> +<p> +There is a story current of a certain very eminent French naturalist, who +is so profoundly impressed by the truth of the Darwinian theory, that he +never passes the cage where the larger apes are confined in the Jardin des +Plantes without taking off his hat, making a profound obeisance, and +wishing them a <i>bon jour</i>. +</p> +<p> +This recognition is touching and graceful. The homage of the witches to +him who should be king hereafter, had in it a sort of mockery that made it +horrible; but here we have an act of generous courtesy, based alike on the +highest discoveries of science and the rules of the truest good-breeding. +</p> +<p> +The learned professor, with all the instincts of great acquirements and +much self-knowledge united, admits them at once to equality and fraternity—the +liberty, perhaps, they will have to wait some time for; but in that they +are no worse off than some millions of their fellow-countrymen. +</p> +<p> +One might speculate long—I don’t know exactly how profitably—on +the sense of gratitude these creatures must feel for this touching +kindness, how they must long for the good man’s visit, how they must +wonder by what steps he arrived at this astonishing knowledge, how +surprised they must feel that he does not make more converts; and, last of +all, what pains they must take to exhibit in their outward bearing and +behaviour that they are not unworthy of the high consideration he bestows +on them! Before him no monkey-tricks, no apish indecorums—none even +of those passing levities which young gorillas will indulge in just like +other youths. No; all must be staid, orderly, and respectful—heads +held well up—hands at rest—tails nowhere; in fact, a port and +bearing that would defy the most scrutinising observer to say that they +were less eligible company than that he had just quitted at the café. +</p> +<p> +I own I have not seen them during the moment of the Professor’s passage. I +am unable to state authentically whether all this be as I surmise, but I +have a strong impression it must be. Indeed, reflecting on the habits and +modes of the species, I should be rather disposed to believe them given to +an exuberant show of gratitude than to anything like indifference, and +expect to witness demonstrations of delight more natural possibly than +graceful. +</p> +<p> +Now, I have not the most remote intention of impugning the Professor’s +honesty. I give him credit—full credit—for high purpose, and +for high courage. “These poor brothers of ours,” says he, “have tails, it +is true, and they have not the hypocampus major; but let me ask you, +Monsieur le Duc, or you, Monseigneur the Archbishop, will you dare to +affirm on oath that you yourself are endowed with a hypocampus major or +minor? Are you prepared to stand forward and declare that the convolutions +of your brain are of the regulation standard—that the medullary part +is not disproportioned to the cineritious—that your falx is not +thicker or thinner than it ought—and that your optic thalami are not +too prominent? And if you are not ready to do this, what avails all your +assumption of superiority? In these—they are not many—lie the +alleged differences between you and your caged cousins yonder.” Thus +speaks, or might speak, the Professor; and, I repeat, I respect his +candour; but still I would venture to submit one small, perhaps ungenerous +doubt, and ask, Would he, acting on the noble instincts that move him, +vote these creatures an immediate and entire emancipation, or would he not +rather wait a while—a few years, say—till the habit of sitting +on chairs had worn off some of the tail, and a greater familiarity with +society suggested not to store up their dinner in their jaws? Would he +like to see them at once take their places in public life, become public +functionaries, and ministers, and grand cordons? +</p> +<p> +Would he not rather, with that philosophy his country eminently teaches, +say, “I will do the pity and the compassion. To me be the sympathetic part +of a graceful sorrow. To posterity I bequeath the recognition of these +poor captives. Let them be liberated, by all means; but let it be when I +shall be no longer here to witness it. Let others face that glorious +millennium of gorilla greatness.” + </p> +<p> +I am afraid he would reason in this fashion; it is one thing to have an +opinion, and to have what Frenchmen call the “courage of your opinion.” He +would say, “If Nature work surely, she works slowly; her changes are +measured, regular, and progressive. With her there are no paroxysms; all +is orderly—all is gradual It took centuries of centuries to advance +these poor creatures to the point they occupy; their next stage on the +journey is perhaps countless years away. I will not attempt to forestall +what I cannot assist. I will let Time do its work. They are not +ill-treated, besides; that large creature with the yellow eyebrows grinned +at me very pleasantly this morning, and the she-ourang-outang was whipping +her infant most naturally as I came by.” + </p> +<p> +“What a cold-blooded philanthropy is this!” cries another. “You say these +are our brothers and our kinsmen; you declare that anatomy only can detect +some small and insignificant discrepancies between us, and that even in +these there are some of whose functions we know nothing, and others, such +as the prehensile power, where the ape has the best of it. What do you +mean by keeping them there ‘cribbed, cabined, and confined’? Is a slight +frontal inclination to disqualify a person from being a prefect? Is an +additional joint in the coccyx to prevent a man sitting on the woolsack, +or an extra inch in the astragalus to interfere with his wearing spurs? If +there be minute differences between us, intercourse will abolish them. It +will be of inestimable service to yourselves to come into contact with +these fresh, fine, generous natures, uncontaminated by the vices of an +effete and worn-out civilisation. Great as are the benefits you extend to +them, they will repay you tenfold in the advantages to yourselves. Away +with your unworthy prejudices about a ‘black pigment’ and long heels! Take +them to your hearts and your hearths. You will find them brave—ay, +braver than your own race. Their teeth are whiter and their nails longer; +there is not a relation in life in which you will dare to call yourself +their better.” + </p> +<p> +I will go no farther, not merely because I have no liking for my theme, +but because I am pilfering. All these arguments—the very words +themselves—I have stolen from an American writer, who, in Horace +Greeley fashion, is addressing his countrymen on the subject of negro +equality. He not alone professes to show the humanity of the project, but +its policy—its even necessity. He declares to the whites, “You want +these people; without them you will sink lower and lower into that effete +degeneracy into which years of licentiousness have sunk you. These +gorillas—black men, I mean—are virtuous; they are abstemious; +they have a little smell, but no sensuality; they will make admirable +wives for your warriors; and who knows but one may be the mother of a +President as strikingly handsome as Ape Lincoln himself!” There is no +doubt much to be said for our long-heeled friends, whether with or without +a hypocampus major. I am not very certain that we compliment them in the +best taste when the handsomest thing we can say of them is, that they are +very like ourselves! It is our human mode, however, of expressing +admiration, and resembles the exclamation of the Oberland peasant on +seeing a pretty girl, “How handsome she’d be if she only had a <i>goître!</i>” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE RULE NISI. +</h2> +<p> +A great many sea-captains discourage the use of life-preservers and +floating-belts on board ships of war, on the simple ground that men should +not be taught to rely for their safety on anything but what conduces to +save the ship. “Let there be but one thought, one effort,” say they, “and +let that be for the common safety.” If they be right—and I suspect +they are—we have made a famous blunder by our late legislation about +divorce. Of all the crafts that ever were launched, marriage is one from +which fewest facilities of desertion should be provided. +</p> +<p> +Romanism makes very few mistakes in worldly matters. There is no feature +of that Church so remarkable as its deep study and thorough acquaintance +with all the moods and wants and wishes of humanity. Whatever its +demerits, one cannot but admit that no other religion ever approached it +in intimacy with the human heart in all its emotions and in all its +strivings, whether for good or evil. +</p> +<p> +Rome declares against all breach of the marriage tie. The Church, with a +spirit of concession it knows how to carry through all its dealings, +modifies, softens, assuages, but never severs conjugalism. It makes the +tie occasionally a slip-knot, but it never cuts the string, and I strongly +suspect that it is wise in its legislation. +</p> +<p> +For a great many years we gave the policy that amount of imitation we are +wont to accord to Romanist practices; that is, we follow them in part—we +adopt the coat, but, to show that we are not mere imitators, we cut off +one of the skirts; and if we do not make the garment more graceful, we at +least consult our dignity, and that is something. We made divorce the +privilege of men rich enough to come to Parliament for relief; we did with +the question what some one proposed we should do with poisons—make +them so costly that only wealthy men should be able to afford the luxury +of suicide. So long as men believed that divorce was immoral, I don’t +think any one complained that it should be limited to persons in +affluence. We are a lord-loving race, we English, and are quite ready to +concede that our superiors should have more vices than ourselves, just as +they have more horses and more pheasants; and we deemed it nothing odd or +strange that he, whose right it was to walk into the House of Peers, +should walk out of matrimony when it suited him. +</p> +<p> +Who knows?—perhaps we were flattered by the thought that great folk +so far conceded to a vulgar prejudice as to marry at all. Perhaps we +hailed their entrance into conjugalism as we are wont to do their +appearance at a circus or a public garden—a graceful acknowledgment +that they occasionally felt something like ourselves: at all events, we +liked it, and we showed we liked it by the zeal with which we read those +descriptions in newspapers of marriages in high life, and the delight with +which we talked to each other of people we never saw, nor probably ever +should see. It was not too much, therefore, to concede to them this +privilege of escape. It was very condescending of them to come to the play +at all; we had no right to insist that they should sit out the whole +performance. +</p> +<p> +By degrees, however, what with rich cotton-lords, and cheap cyclopaedias, +and penny trains, and popular lectures, there got up a sort of impression—it +was mere impression for a long time—that great folk had more than +their share of the puddings’ plums; and agitators began to bestir +themselves. What were the privileges of the higher classes which would sit +most gracefully on their inferiors? Naturally we bethought us of their +vices. It was not always so easy to adopt my lord’s urbanity, his +unassuming dignity, his well-bred ease; but one might reasonably aspire to +be as wicked. Sabbath-breaking had long since ceased to be the privilege +of the better classes, and so men’s minds reverted to the question of +divorce. “Let us get rid of our wives!” cried they; “who knows but the day +may come when we shall kill woodcocks?” + </p> +<p> +Now the law, in making divorce a very costly process, had simply desired +to secure its infrequency. It was not really meant to be a rich man’s +privilege. What was sought for was to oppose as many obstacles as could be +found, to throw in as many rocks as possible into the channel, so that +only he who was intently bent on navigating the stream would ever have the +energy to clear the passage. Nobody ever dreamed of making it an open +roadstead. In point of fact, the oft-boasted equality before the law is a +myth. The penalty which a labourer could endure without hardship might +break my lord’s heart; and in the very case before us of divorce, nothing +can possibly be more variable than the estimate formed of the divorced +individuals, according to the class of society they move in. +</p> +<p> +What would be a levity here, would be a serious immorality there; and a +little lower down again, a mere domestic arrangement, slightly more +decorous and a shade more legal than the old system of the halter and the +public sale. It was declared, however, that this “relief”—that is +the popular phrase in such matters—should be extended to the poor +man. It was decided that the privilege to get rid of a wife was, as Mr +Gladstone says of the electoral right, the inalienable claim of a freeman, +and the only course was to lower the franchise. +</p> +<p> +Let us own, too, we were ashamed, as we had good right to be ashamed, of +our old <i>crim. con.</i> law. Foreigners, especially Frenchmen, had rung +the changes on our coarse venality and corruption; and we had come to +perceive—it took some time, though—that moneyed damages were +scarcely the appropriate remedy for injured honour. +</p> +<p> +Last of all, free-trade notions had turned all our heads: we were for +getting rid of all restrictions on every side; and we went about repeating +to each other those wise saws about buying in the cheapest and selling in +the dearest market, and having whatever we wanted, and doing whatever we +liked with our own. We are, there is no denying it, a nation of +shopkeepers; and the spirit of trade can be tracked through every relation +of our lives. It is commerce gives the tone to all our dealings; and we +have carried its enactments into the most sacred of all our institutions, +and imparted a “limited liability” even to marriage. +</p> +<p> +Cheapness became the desideratum of our age, We insisted on cheap gloves +and shoes and wine and ribbons, and why not cheap divorces? Philosophers +tell us that the alternate action of the seasons is one of the purest and +most enduring of all sources of enjoyment; that perpetual summer or spring +would weary and depress; but in the ever-changing aspect of nature, and in +the stimulation which diversity excites, we find an unfailing +gratification. If, therefore, it be pleasant to be married, it may also be +agreeable to be unmarried. It takes some time, however, before society +accommodates itself to these new notions. The newly divorced, be it man or +woman, comes into the world like a patient after the smallpox—you +are not quite certain whether the period of contagion is past, or if it be +perfectly safe to go up and talk to him. In fact, you delay doing so till +some strong-minded friend or other goes boldly forward and shakes the +convalescent by the hand. Even still there will be timid people who know +perhaps that their delicacy of constitution renders them peculiarly +sensitive, and who will keep aloof after all. Of course, these and similar +prejudices will give way to time. We have our Probate Court; and the +phrase <i>co-respondent</i> is now familiar as a household word. +</p> +<p> +Now, however tempting the theme, I am not going to inquire whether we have +done wisely or the reverse by this piece of legislation; whether, by +instilling certain precepts of self-control, a larger spirit of +accommodation, and a more conciliatory disposition generally, we might +have removed some of the difficulties without the heroic remedy of the +decree <i>nisi</i>; whether, in fact, it might not have been better to +teach people to swim, or even float, rather than make this great issue of +cheap life-belts. I am so practical that I rather address myself to profit +by what is, than endeavour by any change to make it better. We live in a +statistical age. We are eternally inquiring who it is wants this, who +consumes that, who goes to such a place, who is liable to this or that +malady. Classification is a passion with us; and we have bulky volumes to +teach us what sorts of people have chest affections, what are most prone +to stomachic diseases, who have ophthalmia, and who the gout. We are also +instructed as to the kind of persons most disposed to insanity, and we +have a copious list of occupations given us which more or less incline +those who profess them to derangement. Even the Civil-Service Examiners +have contributed their share to this mass of entertaining knowledge, and +shown from what parts of the kingdom bad spellers habitually come, what +counties are celebrated for cacography, and in what districts etymology is +an unknown thing. Would it not, then, be a most interesting and +instructive statistic that would give us a tabular view of divorce, +showing in what classes frailty chiefly prevailed, with the relative +sexes, and also a glimpse at the ages? Imagine what a light the statement +would throw on the morality of classes, and what an incalculable benefit +to parents in the choice of a career for their children! For instance, no +sensible father would select a life of out-door exposure for a +weak-chested son, or make a sailor of one with an incurable sea-sickness. +In the same way would he be guided by the character of his children as to +the perils certain careers would expose them to. +</p> +<p> +A passing glance at the lists of divorce shows us that no “promovent”—it +is a delicate title, and I like it—no promovent figures oftener than +a civil engineer. Now, how instructive to inquire why! +</p> +<p> +What is there in embankments and earthworks and culverts that should +dispose the wife of him who makes them to infidelity? Why should a tunnel +only lead to domestic treachery? why must a cutting sever the heart that +designs it? I do not know; I cannot even guess. My ingenuity stands +stockstill at the question, and I can only re-echo, Why? +</p> +<p> +Next amongst the “predisposed” come schoolmasters, plasterers, &c. +What unseen thread runs through the woof of these natures, apparently so +little alike? It is the boast of modern science to settle much that once +was puzzling, and reconcile to a system what formerly appeared discordant. +How I wish some great Babbage-like intellect would bestir itself in this +inquiry. +</p> +<p> +Surely ethical questions are as well worthy of investigation as purely +physical or mechanical ones, and yet we ignore them most ignominiously. We +think no expense too great to test an Armstrong or a Whitworth gun; we +spend thousands to ascertain how far it will carry, what destructive force +it possesses, and how long it will resist explosion;—why not appoint +a commission of this nature on “conjugate;” why not ascertain, if we can, +what is the weak point in matrimony, and why are explosions so frequent? +Is the “cast” system a bad one, and must we pronounce “welding” a failure? +or, last of all, however wounding to our national vanity, do “they +understand these things better in France”? +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +ON CLIMBING BOYS. +</h2> +<p> +With the common fate of all things human, it is said that every career and +walk in life has some one peculiar disparagement—something that, +attaching to the duties of the station as a sort of special grievance, +serves to show that none of us, no matter how favoured, are to imagine +there can be any lot exempted from its share of troubles. Ask the soldier, +the sailor, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, or the actor, and each +will give you a friendly warning to adopt any other career than his own. +</p> +<p> +In most cases the <i>quid amarum</i>, the one bitter drop, is to be found +in the career itself, something that belongs to that one craft or calling; +just as the white-lead colic, for instance, is the fatal malady of +painters. There are, however, a few rare cases in which the detracting +element attaches itself to the followers and not to the profession, as +though it would seem there was a something in the daily working of that +peculiar craft which warped the minds and coerced the natures of men to be +different from what temperament and character should have made of them. +</p> +<p> +The two classes which most prominently exhibit what I mean are somewhat +socially separated, but they have a number of small analogies in common. +They are Sweeps and Statesmen! It would be tempting—but I resist the +temptation—to show how many points of resemblance unite them—how +each works in the dark, in a small, narrow, confined sphere, without view +or outlet; how the tendency of each is to scratch his way upwards and gain +the top, caring wonderfully little how black and dirty the process has +made him. One might even go farther, and mark how, when indolence or +weariness suggested sloth, the stimulus of a little fire underneath, +whether a few lighted straws or a Birmingham mass-meeting, was sure to +quicken progress and excite activity. +</p> +<p> +Again, I make this statement on the faith of Lord Shaftesbury, who +pronounced it before their Lordships in the Upper House:—“It is no +uncommon thing to buy and sell them. There is a regular traffic in them; +and through the agency of certain women, not the models of their sex, you +can get any quantity of them you want.” Last of all, on the same high +authority, we are told of their perfect inutility, “since there is nothing +that they do could not be better done by a machine.” + </p> +<p> +I resist, as I say, all temptations of this kind, and simply address +myself to the one point of similarity between them which illustrates the +theory with which I have started—and now to state this as formally +as I am able. Let me declare that in all the varied employments of life I +have never met with men who have the same dread of their possible +successors as sweeps and statesmen. The whole aim and object of each is +directed, first of all, to keep those who do their work as little as +possible, well knowing that the time will come when these small creatures +will find the space too confined for them, and set up for themselves. +</p> +<p> +A volume might be written on the subtle artifices adopted to keep them +“little”—the browbeatings, the insults, the crushing cruelties, the +spare diet intermixed with occasional stimulants, the irregular hours, and +the heat and confinement of the sphere they work in. Still, nature is +stronger than all these crafty contrivances. The little sweep will grow +into the big sweep, and the small under-sec. will scratch his way up to +the Cabinet I will not impose on my reader the burden of carrying along +with him this double load. I will address myself simply to one of these +careers—the Statesman’s. It is a strange but a most unquestionable +fact, that no other class of men are so ill-disposed to those who are the +most likely to succeed them—not of an Opposition, for that would be +natural enough, but of their own party, of their own colour, of their own +rearing. Let us be just: when a man has long enjoyed place, power, and +pre-eminence, dispensed honours and pensions and patronage, it is not a +small trial to discover that one of those little creatures he has made—whose +first scraper and brush he himself paid for—I can’t get rid of the +sweep out of my head—will turn insolently on him and declare that he +will no longer remain a subordinate, but go and set up for himself. This +is excessively hard, and might try the temper of a man even without a fit +of the gout. +</p> +<p> +It is exactly what has just happened; an apprentice, called Gladstone, +having made a sort of connection in Manchester and Birmingham, a district +abounding in tall chimneys, has given warning to his master Pam that he +will not sweep any longer. He is a bold, aspiring sort of lad, and he is +not satisfied with saying—as many others have done—that he is +getting too broad-shouldered for his work; but he declares that the +chimneys for the future must be all made bigger and the flues wider, just +because he likes climbing, and doesn’t mean to abandon it. There is no +doubt of it. Manchester and Stockport and Birmingham have put this in his +head. Their great smelting-houses and steam-power factories require big +chimneys; and being an overbearing set of self-made vulgar fellows, they +say they ought to be a law to all England. You don’t want to make +cotton-twist, or broad-gauge iron; so much the worse for you. It is the +grandest object of humanity. Providence created men to manufacture printed +cottons and cheap penknives. We of Manchester understand what our American +friends call manifest destiny; we know and feel ours will be—to rule +England. Once let us only introduce big chimneys, and you’ll see if you +won’t take to spinning-jennies and mules and treddles; and there’s that +climbing boy Gladstone declares he’ll not leave the business, but go up, +no matter how dirty the flue, the day we want him. +</p> +<p> +Some shrewd folk, who see farther into the millstone than their +neighbours, have hinted that this same boy is of a crotchety, intriguing +type, full of his own ingenuity, and enamoured of his own subtlety; so +that make the chimney how great you will, he’ll not go up it, but scratch +out another flue for himself, and come out, heaven knows where or how. +Indeed, they tell that on one occasion of an alarm of fire in the house—caused +by a pantry-boy called Russell burning some wasterpaper instead of going +up the chimney as he was ordered—this same Will began to tell how +the Greeks had no chimneys, and a mass of antiquarian rubbish of the same +kind, so that his master, losing patience, exclaimed, “Of all plagues in +the world he knew of none to compare with these ‘climbing boys!’” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +LINGUISTS +</h2> +<p> +There are two classes of people not a little thought of, and even +caressed, in society, and for whom I have ever felt a very humble estimate—the +men who play all manner of games, and the men who speak several languages. +I begin with the latter, and declare that, after a somewhat varied +experience of life, I never met a linguist that was above a third-rate +man; and I go farther, and aver, that I never chanced upon a really able +man who had the talent for languages. +</p> +<p> +I am well aware that it sounds something little short of a heresy to make +this declaration. It is enough to make the blood of Civil-Service +Commissioners run cold to hear it. It sounds illiberal—and, worse, +it seems illogical. Why should any intellectual development imply +deficiency? Why should an acquirement argue a defect? I answer, I don’t +know—any more than I know why sanguineous people are hot-tempered, +and leuco-phlegmatic ones are more brooding in their wrath. If—for I +do not ask to be anything higher than empirical—if I find that +parsimonious people have generally thin noses, and that the snub is +associated with the spendthrift, I never trouble myself with the +demonstration, but I hug the fact, and endeavour to apply it. +</p> +<p> +In the same spirit, if I hear a man in a salon change from French to +German and thence diverge into Italian and Spanish, with possibly a brief +excursion into something Scandinavian or Sclav—at home in each and +all—I would no more think of associating him in my mind with +anything responsible in station or commanding in intellect, than I should +think of connecting the servant that announced me with the last brilliant +paper in the ‘Quarterly.’ +</p> +<p> +No man with a strongly-marked identity—and no really able man ever +existed without such—can subordinate that identity so far as to put +on the foreigner; and without this he never can attain that mastery of a +foreign language that makes the linguist. To be able to repeat +conventionalities—bringing them in at the telling moment, adjusting +phrases to emergencies, as a joiner adapts the pieces of wood to his +carpentry—may be, and is, a very neat and a very dexterous +performance, but it is scarcely the exercise to which a large capacity +will address itself. Imitation must be, in one sense or other, the +stronghold of the linguist—imitation of expression, of style, of +accent, of cadence, of tone. The linguist must not merely master grammar, +but he must manage gutturals. The mimicry must go farther: in simulating +expression it must affect the sentiment. You are not merely borrowing the +clothes, but you are pretending to put on the feelings, the thoughts, the +prejudices of the wearer. Now, what man with a strong nature can merge +himself so entirely in his fictitious being as not to burst the seams and +tear the lining of a garment that only impedes the free action of his +limbs, and actually threatens the very extinction of his respiration? +</p> +<p> +It is not merely by their greater adaptiveness that women are better +linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their more +subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which are +consequently less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual self. +And what is it that makes the men of mark or note, the cognate signs of +human algebra, but these same characteristics; not always good, not always +pleasant, not always genial, but always associated with something that +declares preeminence, and pronounces their owner to be a “representative +man”? +</p> +<p> +When Lord Ward replied to Prince Schwartzenberg’s flippant remark on the +bad French of English diplomatists by the apology, “that we had not +enjoyed the advantage of having our capital cities so often occupied by +French troops as some of our neighbours,” he uttered not merely a smart +epigram but a great philosophical truth. It was not alone that we had not +possessed the opportunity to pick up an accent, but that we had not +subordinated our minds and habits to French modes and ways of thought, and +that the tone and temper of the French people had not been beaten into us +by the roll of a French drum. One may buy an accomplishment too dearly. It +is possible to pay too much even for a Parisian pronunciation! Not only +have I never found a linguist a man of eminence, but I have never seen a +linguist who talked well. Fluent they are, of course, like the Stecknadel +gun of the Prussians, they can fire without cessation, but, like the same +weapon, they are comparatively aimless. It is a <i>feu roulant</i>, with +plenty of noise and some smoke, but very “few casualties” announce the +success. The greatest linguist of modern Europe, Mezzofanti, was a most +inferior man. Of the countries whose dialect he spoke to perfection, he +knew nothing. An old dictionary would have been to the full as +companionable. I find it very hard not to be personal just now, and give a +list—it would be a long one—of all the tiresome people I know, +who talk four, five, some of them six modern languages perfectly. It is +only with an effort I abstain from mentioning the names of some well-known +men who are the charming people at Borne and Vienna every winter, and each +summer are the delight of Ems, of Berlin, and of Ischl. What tyrants these +fellows are, too, over the men who have not got their gift of tongues! how +they out-talk them and overbear them! with what an insolent confidence +they fall back upon the petty superiority of their fluency, and lord it +over those who are immeasurably their masters! Just as Blondin might run +along the rigging of a three-decker, and pretend that his agility entitled +him to command a squadron! +</p> +<p> +Nothing, besides, is more imposing than the mock eloquence of good French. +The language in itself is so adaptive, it is so felicitous, it abounds in +such innumerable pleasant little analogies, such nice conceits and +suggestive drolleries, that he who acquires these has at will a whole +armoury of attack and defence. It actually requires years of habit to +accustom us to a display that we come at last to discover implies no +brilliancy whatever in him who exhibits, though it argues immense +resources in the treasury from which he derives this wealth. +</p> +<p> +I have known scores of delightful talkers—Frenchmen—who had no +other charm than what their language lent them. They were neither +profound, nor cultivated, nor witty—some were not even shrewd or +acute; but all were pleasant—pleasant in the use of a conversational +medium, of which the world has not the equal—a language that has its +set form of expression for every social eventuality, and that hits to a +nicety every contingency of the “salon;” for it is no more the language of +natural people than the essence of the perfumer’s shop is the odour of a +field flower. It is pre-eminently the medium of people who talk with tall +glasses before them, and an incense of truffles around them, and +well-dressed women—clever and witty, and not over-scrupulous in +their opinions—for their company. Then, French is unapproachable; +English would be totally unsuited to the occasion, and German even more +so. There is a flavour of sauer kraut about that unhappy tongue that would +vulgarise a Queen if she talked it. +</p> +<p> +To attain, therefore, the turns and tricks of this language—for it +is a Chinese puzzle in its involvements—what a life must a man have +led! What “terms” he must have “put in” at cafés and restaurants! What +seasons at small theatres—tripots and worse! What nights at +bals-masqués, Chateaux des Fleurs, and Cadrans rouges et bleus! What +doubtful company he must have often kept! What company a little more than +doubtful occasionally! What iniquities of French romance must he have +read, with all the cardinal virtues arrayed as the evil destinies of +humanity, and every wickedness paraded as that natural expansion of the +heart which alone raises man above the condition of the brute! I ask, if +proficiency must imply profligacy, would you not rather find a man break +down in his verbs than in his virtue? Would you not prefer a little +inaccuracy in his declensions to a total forgetfulness of the decalogue? +And, lastly of all, what man of real eminence could have masqueraded—for +it is masquerading—for years in this motley, and come out, after +all, with even a rag of his identity? +</p> +<p> +Many people would scruple to play at cards with a stranger whose mode of +dealing and general manipulation of the pack bespoke daily familiarity +with the play-table. They would infer that he was a regular and +professional gambler. In the very same way, and for the selfsame reason, +would I carefully avoid any close intimacy with the Englishman of fluent +French, well knowing he could not have graduated in that perfection save +at a certain price. But it is not at the moral aspect of the question I +desire particularly to look. I assert—and I repeat my assertion—that +these talkers of many tongues are poor creatures. There is no initiative +in them—they suggest nothing—they are vendors of second-hand +wares, and are not always even good selectors of what they sell. It is +only in narrative that they are at all endurable. They can <i>raconter</i>, +certainly; and so long as they go from salon to salon repeating in set +phrase some little misadventure or accident of the day, they are amusing; +but this is not conversation, and they do not converse. +</p> +<p> +“Every time a man acquires a new language, is he a new man?” is supposed +to have been a saying of Charles V.—a sentiment that, if he uttered +it, means more of sarcasm than of praise; for it is the very putting off a +man’s identity that establishes his weakness. All real force of character +excludes dualism. Every eminent, every able man has a certain integrity in +his nature that rejects this plasticity. +</p> +<p> +It is a very common habit, particularly with newspaper writers, to ascribe +skill in languages, and occasionally in games, to distinguished people. It +was but the other day we were told that Garibaldi spoke ten languages +fluently. Now Garibaldi is not really master of two. He speaks French +tolerably; and his native language is not Italian, but a patois-Genoese. +Cavour was called a linguist with almost as little truth; but people +repeat the story, just as they repeat that Napoleon I. was a great +chess-player. If his statecraft and his strategy had been on a par with +his chess, we should never have heard of Tilsit or Wagram. +</p> +<p> +Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, and George Canning, each of whom +administered our foreign policy with no small share of success, were not +linguists; and as to Charles Fox, he has left a French sentence on record +that will last even as long as his own great name. I do not want to decry +the study of languages; I simply desire to affirm that linguists—and +through all I have said I mean colloquial linguists—are for the most +part poor creatures, not otherwise distinguished than by the gift of +tongues; and I want to protest against the undue pre-eminence accorded to +the possessors of a small accomplishment, and the readiness with which the +world, especially the world of society, awards homage to an acquirement in +which a boarding-school Miss can surpass Lord Brougham. I mean to say a +word or two about those who have skill in games; but as they are of a +higher order of intelligence, I’ll wait till I have got “fresh wind” ere I +treat of <i>them</i>. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE OLD CONJURORS AND THE NEW. +</h2> +<p> +As there are few better tests of the general health of an individual than +in the things he imagines to be injurious to him, so there is no surer +evidence of the delicate condition of a State than in the character of +those who are assumed to be dangerous to it. Now, after all that has been +said of Rome and the corruptions of Roman government, I do not know +anything so decidedly damnatory as the fact, to which allusion was lately +made in Parliament, that the Papal Government had ordered Mr Home, the +spiritualist, to quit the city and the States of his Holiness, and not to +return to them. +</p> +<p> +In what condition, I would ask, must a country be when such a man is +regarded as dangerous? and in what aspect of his character does the danger +consist? +</p> +<p> +Do we want ghosts or spirits to reveal to us any more of the iniquities of +that State than we already know? Is there a detail of its corrupt +administration that the press of Europe has not spread broadcast over the +world? What could Mr Home and all his spirits tell us of peculation, +theft, subornation, bigotry, and oppression, that the least observant +traveller has not brought home with him? +</p> +<p> +And then, as to the man himself, how puerile it is to give him this +importance! The solitary bit of cleverness about him is his statement that +he has no control whatever over the spirits that attend him. Asking him +not to summon them, is pretty like asking Mr Windham not to send for his +creditors. They come pretty much as they like, and probably their visits +are about equally profitable. +</p> +<p> +In this respect Home belongs to a very low order of his art. When Bosco +promises to make a bouquet out of a mouse-trap, or Houdin engages to +concoct a batter-pudding in your hat, each keeps his word. There is no +subterfuge about the temper the spirits may happen to be in, or of their +willingness or unwillingness to present themselves. The thing is done, and +we see it—or we think we see it, which comes much to the same. +</p> +<p> +With this provision of escape Mr Home secures himself against all failure. +Should, for instance, the audience prove to be of a more discriminating +and observant character than he liked or anticipated, and the exhibition +in consequence be rendered critical, all he had to do was, to aver that +the spirits would not come; it was no breakdown on <i>his</i> part Homer +was sulky, or Dante was hipped, or Lord Bacon was indisposed to meet +company, and there was the end of it. You were invited to meet +celebrities, but it was theirs to say if they would present themselves. +</p> +<p> +On the other hand, when the proper element of credulity offered—when +the séance was comprised of the select few, emotional, sensitive, and +hysterical as they ought to be—when the nervous lady sat beside the +timid gentleman, and neuralgia confronted confirmed dyspepsia—the +artist could afford to be daring, and might venture on flights that +astounded even himself. What limit is there, besides, to contagional +sympathy? Look at the crowded theatre, with its many-minded spectators, +and see how one impulse, communicated occasionally by a hireling, will set +the whole mass in a ferment of enthusiastic delight. Mark, too, how the +smile, that plays like an eddy on a lake, deepens into a laugh, and is +caught up by another and another, till the whole storm breaks out in a +hearty ocean of merriment. These, if you like, are spirits; but the great +masters of them are not men like Mr Home—they have ever been, and +still are, of a very different order. Shakespeare and Molière and +Cervantes knew something of the mode to summon these imps, and could make +them come at their bidding besides. +</p> +<p> +Was it—to come back to what I started with—was it in any +spirit of rivalry that the Papal Government drove Mr Home out of Home? Was +it that, assuming to have a monopoly in the wares he dealt in, they would +not stand a contraband trade? If so, their ground is at least defensible; +for what chance of attraction would there be for the winking Virgin in +competition with him who could “make a young lady ascend to the ceiling, +and come slowly down like a parachute!”—a spiritual fact I have +heard from witnesses who really, so far as character went, might challenge +any incredulity. +</p> +<p> +If the Cardinals were jealous of the Conjuror, the thing is intelligible +enough, and one must feel a certain degree of sympathy with the +old-established firm that had spent such enormous sums, and made such +stupendous preparations, when a pretender like this could come into +competition with them, without any other properties than could be carried +conveniently about him. +</p> +<p> +But let us be practical The Pope’s Government demanded of Mr Home that he +should have no dealings with the Evil One during his stay at Rome. Now, I +ask, what should we say of the efficacy of our police system if we were to +hear that the Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard lived in nightly terror of +the pickpockets who frequented that quarter, and came to Parliament with a +petition to accord him some greater security against their depredations? +Would not the natural reply be an exclamation of astonishment that he who +could summon to his aid every alphabetical blue-coat that ever handled a +truncheon, should deem any increased security necessary to his peace? And +so, would I ask, of what avail these crowds of cardinals—these +regiments of monsignori—these battalions of bishops, Arch and +simple?—of what use all the incense and these chanted litanies, +these eternal processions, and these saintly shin-bones borne in costly +array—if one poor mortal, supposed to live on visiting terms with +the Evil One, can strike such terror into the whole army led on by +Infallibility? +</p> +<p> +If I had been possessed of any peculiar dread of coming unexpectedly on +the Devil—as the old ladies of New York used to feel long ago about +suddenly meeting with the British army—I should certainly have +comforted myself by the thought that I could always go and sit down on the +steps of the Vatican. It would immediately have occurred to me, that as +Holyrood offers its sanctuary against the sheriff, the Quirinal would be +the sure retreat against Old Nick; and I have even pictured to myself the +rage of his disappointed malice as he saw me sheltering safely beneath a +protection he dared not invade. And now I am told to relinquish all the +blessed enjoyment of this immunity; that the Pope and the Cardinals and +Antonelli himself are not a whit better off than the rest of us; that if +Mr Home gets into Rome, there is nothing to prevent his having the Devil +at his tea-parties. What an ignoble confession is this! Who will step +forward any longer and contend that this costly system is to be +maintained, and all these saintly intercessors to be kept on the most +expensive of all pension-lists, if a poor creature like Home can overthrow +it all? +</p> +<p> +Can any one conceive such a spectacle as these gorgeous men of scarlet and +purple cringing before this poor pretender, and openly avowing before +Europe that there is no peace for them till he consents to cross the +Tiber? +</p> +<p> +Why—I speak, of course, in the ignorance of a laic—but, I ask, +why not fumigate him and cleanse him? When I saw him last, the process +would not have been so supererogatory. Why not exorcise and defy him? Why +not say, Come, and bring your friend if you dare; you shall see how we +will treat you. Only try it It is what we have been asking for nigh two +thousand years. Let the great culprit step forward and plead to his +indictment. +</p> +<p> +I can fancy the Pope saying this—I can picture to myself the proud +attitude of the Pontiff declaring, “I have had enough of these small +devilries, like Louis Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel—I am sick of +Mazzini and his petty followers. Let us deal with the chief of the gang at +once; if we cannot convict him, he will be at least open to a compromise.” + This, I say, I can comprehend; but it is clear and clean beyond me that he +should shirk the interview, and own he was afraid of it. It would not +surprise me to-morrow to hear that Lord Derby dreaded the Radicals, and +actually feared the debating powers of “Mr Potter of the Strikes.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +GAMBLING FOR THE MILLION. +</h2> +<p> +Nothing shows what a practical people we are more than our establishment +of insurances against railroad accidents. The spirit of commercial +enterprise, by which a man charters himself for a railroad voyage with an +insured cargo of his bones, ligaments, cartilage, and adipose tissue, +abundantly proves that we are nature’s own traders and shopkeepers. +</p> +<p> +Any ordinary people less imbued with Liverpool and Manchester notions +would have bestirred themselves how to prevent, or at least lessen, the +number of those casualties. They would have set to work to see what +provisions could be adopted to give greater security to travel. We, on the +contrary are too business-like to waste time on this inquiry. We are +convinced that, let us build ships ever so strong, there will still be +shipwrecks. So we feel assured that a certain number of railway accidents, +as they are called, will continue to occur—be as broad gauge as you +will! We accept the situation, therefore, as the French say, and insure; +that is to say, we book a bet at very long odds—say, three to a +thousand—that we shall be rolled up, cut in two, flattened into a +thin sheeting, and ground into an impalpable powder, between Croydon and +Brighton. If we arrive safe, the assurance office pockets a few shillings; +if we win our wager, our executor receives a thousand pounds. +</p> +<p> +It is about the grimmest kind of gambling ever man heard of; and yet we +see folk of the most unquestionable propriety—dignitaries of the +Church, judges, civil and uncivil servants of the Crown, and scores of +others, whom nothing would tempt into the Cursaal at Ems or Baden, as +coolly as possible playing this terrific game, and backing themselves +heavily for a dorsal paralysis, a depressed fracture of the cranium, or at +least a compound dislocation of the hip-joint. +</p> +<p> +Now, if the Protestant Church entertained what the Romanists call cases of +conscience, I should like greatly to ask, Is this right? Is it justifiable +to make a contingent profit out of your cerebral vertebrae or your +popliteal space? +</p> +<p> +We have long been derided and scoffed at for making connubialism +marketable, and putting a price on a wife’s infidelity, but it strikes me +this is something worse; for what, after all, is a rib—a false rib, +too—compared with the whole bony skeleton? +</p> +<p> +“Allah is Allah,” said the Turkish admiral to Lady Hester Stanhope, “but I +have got two anchors astern,” showing that, with all his fatalism, he did +not despise what are technically called human means. So the reverend +Archdeacon, going down for his sea-baths, might say, “I’m not quite sure +they’ll carry me safely, but it shall not be all misfortune—I’ll +take out some of it in money.” + </p> +<p> +The system, however, has its difficulties; for though it is a round game, +the stakes are apportioned with reference to the rank and condition of the +winner—as, for instance, the Solicitor-General’s collarbone is worth +a shoemaker’s whole body, and a Judge’s patella is of more value than a +dealer in marine stores and his rising family. This is a tremendous pull +against the company, who not only give long, but actually incalculable +odds; for while Mr Briggs of the second class can be crumpled up for two +hundred pounds, the Hon. Sackville de Cressy in the coupe cannot be even +concussed under a thousand; while if the noble Duke in the express +carriage be only greatly alarmed, the cost may be positively astounding. +</p> +<p> +This I certainly call hard—very hard. When you book a bet at +Newmarket you never have to consider the rank of your opponent, save as +regards his solvency. He may be a peer—he is very probably a +publican—it is perfectly immaterial to you; but not so here. The +company is positively staking against the incommensurable. They have no +means of knowing whether that large broad-shouldered man yonder is or is +not a royal duke; and when the telegraph announces a collision, it may +chance that the news has declared what will send every shareholder into +bankruptcy, or only graze them without hurting anybody. +</p> +<p> +We all know how a number of what are technically termed serious people +went to Exeter Hall to listen to the music of the ‘Traviata,’ what no +possible temptation would have induced them to hear within the walls of a +theatre. I will not question the propriety of a matter only to be settled +by a reference to conscience; but as the music and the words—for the +airs were sung—were the same, the hearers were not improbably in the +enjoyment of as emotional an amusement as though they had gone for it to +the Queen’s Theatre. Now, may not these railway insurances be something of +the same kind? May it not be a means by which deans and canons and other +broad-hatted dignitaries may enjoy a little gambling without “going in” + for Blind Hooky or Roulette? Regard for decorum would prevent their +sojourning at Homburg or Wiesbaden. They could not, of course, be seen +“punting” at the play-table at Ems; but here is a legitimate game which +all may join in, and where, certainly, the anxiety that is said to impart +the chief ecstasy to the gamester’s passion rises to the very highest It +is heads and tails for a smashing stake, and ought to interest the most +sluggish of mortals. +</p> +<p> +What a useful addition, then, would it be for one’s Bradshaw to have a +tabular view of the “odds” on the different lines, so that a speculative +individual, desiring to provide for his family, might know where to +address himself with best chance of an accident! One can imagine an +assurance company puffing its unparalleled advantages and unrivalled +opportunity, when four excursion trains were to start at five minutes’ +intervals, and the prospect of a smash was little short of a certainty. +“Great attraction! the late rains have injured the chief portion of the +line, so that a disaster is confidently looked for every hour. Make your +game, gentlemen—make your game; nothing received after the bell +rings.” + </p> +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +THE INTOXICATING LIQUORS BILL. +</h2> +<p> +Anything more absurd than the late debate in the House on the best means +of suppressing intemperance it is very hard to imagine. First of all, in +the van, came the grievance to be redressed; and we had a statistical +statement of all the gallons of strong drink consumed—all the moneys +diverted from the legitimate uses of the family—all the debauchees +who rolled drunk through our streets, and all the offences directly +originating in this degrading vice. Now, what conceivable order of mind +could prompt a man to engage in such a laborious research? Who either +doubts the enormity of drunkenness or its frequency? It is a theme that we +hear of incessantly. The pulpit rings with it, the press proclaims it, the +judges declare it in all their charges, and a special class of lecturers +have converted it into a profession. None denied the existence of the +disease; what we craved was the cure. Some discrepancy of opinion +prevailed as to whether the vice was on the increase or the decrease. +Statistics were given, and, of course, statistics supported each +assertion. This, however, was a mere skirmish—the grand battle was, +How was drunkenness to be put down? +</p> +<p> +Mr Lawson’s plan was: If four-fifths of the ratepayers of any district +were agreed that no spirituous liquors should be sold there, that such +should become a law, and no licence for their sale should be issued. The +mover of this proposal, curiously enough, called this “bringing public +opinion to bear on the question.” What muddle of intelligence could +imagine this to be an exercise of public opinion I cannot imagine. Such, +however, is the plan. Drunkenness is to be repressed by making it +impossible. Did it never occur to the honourable gentleman, that all +legislative enactments whatever work not by enforcing what is good, but by +punishing what is evil? No law that ever was made would render people +honest and true to their engagements; but we arrive at a result not very +dissimilar by making dishonesty penal. +</p> +<p> +The Decalogue declares: “Thou shalt not commit a murder.” Human law +pronounces what will come of it if you do. It is, doubtless, very +imperfect legislation, but there is no help for it. We accept such cases, +however, as the best defences we can find for our social condition, never +for a moment presuming to think that we are rendering a vice impossible by +attaching to it a penalty. +</p> +<p> +Mr Lawson, however, says, There shall be no drunkenness, because there +shall be no liquor. Why not extend the principle—for it is a great +discovery—and declare that, wherever four-fifths of the ratepayers +of a town or borough are of opinion that ingratitude is a great offence to +morals and a stain to human nature, in that district where they reside +there shall be no benefits conferred, nor any act of kindly aid or +assistance rendered by one man to his neighbour? I have no doubt that, by +such legislation, you would put down ingratitude. We use acts in the moral +world pretty much as in the physical; and it is entirely by the +impossibility of committing the offence that this gentleman proposes to +prevent its occurrence. But, in the name of common sense, why do we +inveigh against monasteries and nunneries?—why are we so severe on a +system that substitutes restraint for reason, and instead of correction +supplies coercion? Surely this plan is based on exactly the same +principle. Would it, I ask, cure a man of lying—I mean the vice, not +the practice—to place him in a community where no party was +permitted to talk? +</p> +<p> +The example of the higher classes was somewhat ostentatiously paraded in +the debate, and members vied with each other in declaring how often they +dined out without meeting a drunkard in the company. This is very +gratifying and reassurring; but I am not aware that anybody ascribed the +happy change to the paucity of the decanters, and the difficulty of +getting the bottle; or whether it was that four-fifths of the party had +declared an embargo on the sherry, and realised the old proverb by +elevating necessity to the rank of virtue. +</p> +<p> +Let me ask, who ever imagined that the best way to render a soldier brave +in battle was to take care that he never saw an enemy, and only frequented +the society of Quakers? And yet this is precisely what Mr Lawson suggests. +If his system be true, what becomes of all moral discipline and all +self-restraint? It is not through my own convictions that I am sober; it +is through no sense of the degradation that pertains to drunkenness, and +the loss of social estimation that follows it, that I am temperate. It is +because four-fifths of the ratepayers declare that I shall have no drink +nearer than the next parish; and this reminds of another weak point in the +plan. +</p> +<p> +The Americans, who understand something of the evils of drink, on the +principle that made Doctor Panloss a good man, because he knew what +wickedness was, lately passed a law in Congress forbidding the use of +fermented liquors on board all the ships of war. It was one of those +sweeping pieces of legislation that men enact when driven to do something, +they know not exactly what, by the enormity of some great abuse. Now, I +have taken considerable pains to inquire how the plan operates, and what +success has waited on it. From every officer that I have questioned I have +received the same exact testimony: so long as the ships are at sea the men +only grumble at the privation; but once they touch port, and boats’ crews +are permitted to go ashore, drunkenness breaks out with tenfold violence. +For a while all real discipline is at an end; parties are despatched to +bring back defaulters, who themselves get reeling drunk; petty officers +are insulted, and scenes of violence enacted that give the unhappy +locality where they have landed the aspect of a town taken by assault and +given up to pillage. I am not now describing altogether from hearsay; I +have witnessed something of what I speak. +</p> +<p> +As drunkenness, when the ship was at sea, was the rarest of all events, +and the good conduct of the men when on shore was the great object to be +obtained, this system may be, so far as the navy is concerned, pronounced +a decided failure. Whatever may be said about the policy of sowing a man’s +wild oats, nobody, so far as I know, ever hinted that the crop should be +perennial. +</p> +<p> +Legislation can no more make men temperate than it can make them cleanly +or courteous. If Parliament could work miracles of this sort, it would +make one really in love with constitutional government. But what a +crotchety thing all this amateur lawmaking is! Why did it not occur to +this well-intentioned gentleman to inquire how it is that drunkenness is +unknown, or nearly unknown, in what are called the better classes? How is +it that the orgies our grandfathers liked so well, and deemed the great +essence of hospitality, are no longer heard of? The three-bottle man now +could no more be found than the Plesiosaurus. He belongs to a past totally +and essentially irrevocable. +</p> +<p> +And by what has this happy change been effected? Surely not by withdrawing +temptation. Not only have we an infinitely wider choice in fluids than our +forefathers, but they are served and ministered with appliances far more +tasteful and seductive. It is, however, to the higher tone of society the +revolution is owing. Men saw that drunkenness was disgraceful: it rendered +society disorderly and riotous; it interfered with all real conversational +pleasure; it led to unmannerly excesses, and to quarrels. A higher +cultivation repudiated all these things; and even they who, so to say, +“liked their wine” too well, were slow to disparage themselves by an +indulgence which good taste declared to be ungentlemanlike. +</p> +<p> +Is it completely impossible to introduce some such sentiment as this into +other orders of society? We see it certainly in some foreign countries—why +not in our own? Radical orators are incessantly telling us of the mental +powers and the intellectual cultivation of the working-classes, and I am +well-disposed to believe there is much truth in what they say. Why not +then adapt, to men so highly civilised, some of those sentiments that sway +the classes more favoured of fortune? The French artisan would deem it a +disgrace to be drunk—so the Italian; even the German would only go +as far as a sort of beery bemuddlement that made him a more ideal +representative of the Vaterland: why must the Englishman, of necessity, be +the inferior in civilisation to these? I am not willing to believe the +task of such a reformation hopeless, though I am perfectly convinced that +no greater folly could be committed than to attempt it by an Act of +Parliament. +</p> +<p> +When legislation has led men to be agreeable in society, unassuming in +manners, and gentle in deportment, it may make them temperate in their +liquor, but not before. The thing cannot be done in committee, nor by a +vote of the House. It is only to be accomplished by the filtering process, +by which the good habits of a nation drop down and permeate the strata +beneath; so that, in course of time, the whole mass, leavened by the same +ingredients, becomes one as completely in sentiment as in interest. +“Four-fifths of the ratepayers” will not effect this. After all, Mr Lawson +is only a second-hand discoverer. His bill was a mere plagiarism from +beginning to end. The whole text of his argument was said and sung by poor +Curran, full fifty odd years ago:— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“My children, be chaste till you’re tempted; +While sober, be wise and discreet; +And humble your bodies with fasting +Whenever you’ve nothing to eat.” + </pre> +<p> +THE END. <br /><br /> +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cornelius O’Dowd Upon Men And Women +And Other Things In General, by Charles Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNELIUS O’DOWD UPON MEN *** + +***** This file should be named 22058-h.htm or 22058-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/0/5/22058/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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