Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
thoughtful than she had ever been before, and the talk of others seemed
to her wearisome, trite, and dull.
* The object of parochial reform is not that of economy alone;
not merely to reduce poor-rates. The ratepayer ought to remember
that the more he wrests from the grip of the sturdy mendicant,
the more he ought to bestow on undeserved distress. Without the
mitigations of private virtue, every law that benevolists could
make would be harsh.
Was Maltravers happy in his new pursuits? His state of mind at that time
it is not easy to read. His masculine spirit and haughty temper were
wrestling hard against a feeling that had been fast ripening into
passion; but at night, in his solitary and cheerless home, a vision, too
exquisite to indulge, would force itself upon him, till he started from
the revery, and said to his rebellious heart: "A few more years, and
thou wilt be still. What in this brief life is a pang more or less?
Better to have nothing to care for, so wilt thou defraud Fate, thy
deceitful foe! Be contented that thou art alone!" Fortunate was it,
then, for Maltravers, that he was in his native land, not in climes
where excitement is in the pursuit of pleasure rather than in the
exercise of duties. In the hardy air of the liberal England, he
was already, though unknown to himself, bracing and ennobling his
dispositions and desires. It is the boast of this island that the slave
whose foot touches the soil is free. The boast may be enlarged. Where so
much is left to the people, where the life of civilization, not locked
up in the tyranny of Central Despotism, spreads, vivifying, restless,
ardent, through every vein of the healthful body, the most distant
province, the obscurest village, has claims on our exertions, our
duties, and forces us into energy and citizenship. The spirit of
liberty, that strikes the chain from the slave, binds the freeman to
his brother. This is the Religion of Freedom. And hence it is that
the stormy struggles of free States have been blessed with results
of Virtue, of Wisdom, and of Genius by Him who bade us love one
another,--not only that love in itself is excellent, but that from
love, which in its widest sense is but the spiritual term for liberty,
whatever is worthiest of our solemn nature has its birth.
BOOK III.
Harsh things he mitigates, and pride subdues.
_Ex._ SOLON: _Eleg._
CHAPTER I.
YOU still are what you were, sir!
......
... With most quick agility could turn
And return; make knots and undo them,
Give forked counsel.--_Volpone, or the Fox_.
BEFORE a large table, covered with parliamentary papers, sat Lumley
Lord Vargrave. His complexion, though still healthy, had faded from the
freshness of hue which distinguished him in youth. His features, always
sharp, had grown yet more angular: his brows seemed to project more
broodingly over his eyes, which, though of undiminished brightness,
were sunk deep in their sockets, and had lost much of their quick
restlessness. The character of his mind had begun to stamp itself on
the physiognomy, especially on the mouth when in repose. It was, a face
striking for acute intelligence, for concentrated energy; but there was
a something written in it which said, "BEWARE!" It would have inspired
any one who had mixed much amongst men with a vague suspicion and
distrust.
Lumley had been always careful, though plain, in dress; but there was
now a more evident attention bestowed on his person than he had
ever manifested in youth,--while there was something of the Roman's
celebrated foppery in the skill with which his hair was arranged on his
high forehead, so as either to conceal or relieve a partial baldness at
the temples. Perhaps, too, from the possession of high station, or the
habit of living only amongst the great, there was a certain dignity
insensibly diffused over his whole person that was not noticeable in
his earlier years, when a certain _ton de garnison_ was blended with
his ease of manners. Yet, even now, dignity was not his prevalent
characteristic; and in ordinary occasions, or mixed society, he still
found a familiar frankness a more useful species of simulation. At the
time we now treat of, Lord Vargrave was leaning his cheek on one hand,
while the other rested idly on the papers methodically arranged before
him. He appeared to have suspended his labours, and to be occupied
in thought. It was, in truth, a critical period in the career of Lord
Vargrave.
From the date of his accession to the peerage, the rise of Lumley
Ferrers had been less rapid and progressive than he himself could have
foreseen. At first, all was sunshine before him; he had contrived to
make himself useful to his party; he had also made himself personally
popular. To the ease and cordiality of his happy address, he added the
seemingly careless candour so often mistaken for honesty; while,
as there was nothing showy or brilliant in his abilities or
oratory--nothing that aspired far above the pretensions of others, and
aroused envy by mortifying self-love--he created but little jealousy
even amongst the rivals before whom he obtained precedence. For
some time, therefore, he went smoothly on, continuing to rise in the
estimation of his party, and commanding a certain respect from the
neutral public, by acknowledged and eminent talents in the details of
business; for his quickness of penetration, and a logical habit of mind,
enabled him to grapple with and generalize the minutiae of official
labour or of legislative enactments with a masterly success. But as the
road became clearer to his steps, his ambition became more evident and
daring. Naturally dictatorial and presumptuous, his early suppleness to
superiors was now exchanged for a self-willed pertinacity, which often
displeased the more haughty leaders of his party, and often wounded the
more vain. His pretensions were scanned with eyes more jealous and less
tolerant than at first. Proud aristocrats began to recollect that a
mushroom peerage was supported but by a scanty fortune; the men of
more dazzling genius began to sneer at the red-tape minister as a mere
official manager of details; he lost much of the personal popularity
which had been one secret of his power. But what principally injured
him in the eyes of his party and the public were certain ambiguous and
obscure circumstances connected with a short period when himself and his
associates were thrown out of office. At this time, it was noticeable
that the journals of the Government that succeeded were peculiarly
polite to Lord Vargrave, while they covered all his coadjutors with
obloquy: and it was more than suspected that secret negotiations between
himself and the new ministry were going on, when suddenly the latter
broke up, and Lord Vargrave's proper party were reinstated. The vague
suspicions that attached to Vargrave were somewhat strengthened in the
opinion of the public by the fact that he was at first left out of the
restored administration; and when subsequently, after a speech
which showed that he could be mischievous if not propitiated, he was
readmitted, it was precisely to the same office he had held before,--an
office which did not admit him into the Cabinet. Lumley, burning with
resentment, longed to decline the offer; but, alas! he was poor, and,
what was worse, in debt; "his poverty, but not his will, consented." He
was reinstated; but though prodigiously improved as a debater, he felt
that he had not advanced as a public man. His ambition inflamed by his
discontent, he had, since his return to office, strained every nerve to
strengthen his position. He met the sarcasms on his poverty by greatly
increasing his expenditure, and by advertising everywhere his engagement
to an heiress whose fortune, great as it was, he easily contrived to
magnify. As his old house in Great George Street--well fitted for the
bustling commoner--was no longer suited to the official and fashionable
peer, he had, on his accession to the title, exchanged that respectable
residence for a large mansion in Hamilton Place; and his sober dinners
were succeeded by splendid banquets. Naturally, he had no taste for
such things; his mind was too nervous, and his temper too hard, to take
pleasure in luxury or ostentation. But now, as ever he _acted upon a
system_. Living in a country governed by the mightiest and wealthiest
aristocracy in the world, which, from the first class almost to
the lowest, ostentation pervades,--the very backbone and marrow of
society,--he felt that to fall far short of his rivals in display was to
give them an advantage which he could not compensate either by the power
of his connections or the surpassing loftiness of his character and
genius. Playing for a great game, and with his eyes open to all the
consequences, he cared not for involving his private fortunes in a
lottery in which a great prize might be drawn. To do Vargrave justice,
money with him had never been an object, but a means; he was grasping,
but not avaricious. If men much richer than Lord Vargrave find State
distinctions very expensive, and often ruinous, it is not to be supposed
that his salary, joined to so moderate a private fortune, could support
the style in which he lived. His income was already deeply mortgaged,
and debt accumulated upon debt. Nor had this man, so eminent for the
management of public business, any of that talent which springs from
_justice_, and makes its possessor a skilful manager of his own affairs.
Perpetually absorbed in intrigues and schemes, he was too much engaged
in cheating others on a large scale to have time to prevent being
himself cheated on a small one. He never looked into bills till he was
compelled to pay them; and he never calculated the amount of an expense
that seemed the least necessary to his purposes. But still Lord Vargrave
relied upon his marriage with the wealthy Evelyn to relieve him from
all his embarrassments; and if a doubt of the realization of that vision
ever occurred to him, still public life had splendid prizes. Nay, should
he fail with Miss Cameron, he even thought that, by good management, he
might ultimately make it worth while to his colleagues to purchase his
absence with the gorgeous bribe of the Governor-Generalship of India.
As oratory is an art in which practice and the dignity of station
produce marvellous improvement, so Lumley had of late made effects in
the House of Lords of which he had once been judged incapable. It is
true that no practice and no station can give men qualities in which
they are wholly deficient; but these advantages can bring out in the
best light all the qualities they _do_ possess. The glow of a generous
imagination, the grasp of a profound statesmanship, the enthusiasm of
a noble nature,--these no practice could educe from the eloquence of
Lumley Lord Vargrave, for he had them not; but bold wit, fluent and
vigorous sentences, effective arrangement of parliamentary logic,
readiness of retort, plausibility of manner, aided by a delivery
peculiar for self-possession and ease, a clear and ringing voice (to the
only fault of which, shrillness without passion, the ear of the audience
had grown accustomed), and a countenance impressive from its courageous
intelligence,--all these had raised the promising speaker into the
matured excellence of a nervous and formidable debater. But precisely as
he rose in the display of his talents, did he awaken envies and enmities
hitherto dormant. And it must be added that, with all his craft and
coldness, Lord Vargrave was often a very dangerous and mischievous
speaker for the interests of his party. His colleagues had often cause
to tremble when he rose: nay, even when the cheers of his own faction
shook the old tapestried walls. A man who has no sympathy with the