Name and Fame: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

But already Nature had begun with Sydney Campion her grand process of amelioration, which she applies (when we let her have her way) to all men and women, most systematically to those who need it most, securing an entrance to their souls by their very vices and weaknesses, and invariably supplying the human instrument or the effective circumstances which are best calculated to work her purpose. Such beneficent work of Nature may be called, as it was called by the older writers, the Hand of God.

Sydney's great and overweening fault was that form of "moral stupidity" which we term selfishness. Something of it may have come with the faculties which he had inherited—in tendencies and inclinations mysteriously associated with his physical conformation; much had been added thereto by the indulgence of his parents, by the pride of his university triumphs, and by the misfortune of his association in London with men who aggravated instead of modifying the faults of his natural disposition. The death of his father had produced a good effect for the time, and made him permanently more considerate of his mother's and sister's welfare. But a greater and still more permanent effect seemed likely to be produced on him now, for he had opened his heart to the influences of a pure and elevating affection; and for almost the first time there entered into his mind a gradually increasing feeling of contrition and remorse for certain past phases of his life which he knew to be both unworthy in themselves and disloyal (if persisted in) to the woman whom he hoped to make his wife. By a determined effort of will, he cut one knot which he could not untie, but, his thoughts being still centred upon himself, he considered his own rights and needs almost entirely in the matter, and did not trouble himself much about the rights or needs of the other person concerned. He had broken free, and was disposed to congratulate himself upon his freedom; vowing, meanwhile, that he would never put himself into any bonds again except the safe and honorable bonds of marriage.

Thus freed, he went down with Dalton to Angleford for the Easter recess, which fell late that year. He seemed particularly cheery and confident, although Dalton noticed a slight shade of gloom or anxiety upon his brow from time to time, and put it down to his uncertainty as to the Pynsents' acceptance of his attentions to Miss Anna Pynsent, which were already noticed and talked about in society. Sydney was a rising man, but it was thought that Sir John might look higher for his beautiful young sister.

The Parliamentary success of the new member for Vanebury had been as great as his most reasonable friends anticipated for him, if not quite as meteoric as one or two flatterers had predicted. Meteoric success in the House of Commons is not, indeed, so rare as it was twenty years ago, for the studied rhetoric which served our great-grandfathers in their ambitious pursuit of notoriety has given place to the arts of audacity, innovation, and the sublime courage of youthful insolence, which have occasionally worked wonders in our own day.

Sydney had long been a close observer of the methods by which men gained the ear of the House, and he had learned one or two things that were very useful to him now that he was able to turn them to account.

"We have put the golden age behind us," he said one day to Dalton, with the assured and confident air which gave him so much of his power amongst men, "and also the silver age, and the age of brass. We are living in the great newspaper age, and, if a public man wants to get into a foremost place before he has begun to lose his teeth, he must play steadily to the readers of the daily journals. In my small way I have done this already, and now I am in the House, I shall make it my business to study and humor, to some extent, the many-faced monster who reads and reflects himself in the press. In other times a man had to work himself up in Hansard and the Standing Orders, to watch and imitate the old Parliamentary hands, to listen for the whip and follow close at heel; but, as I have often heard you say, we have changed all that. Whatever else a man may do or leave undone, he must keep himself in evidence; it is more important to be talked and written about constantly than to be highly praised once in six months. I don't know any other way of working the oracle than by doing or saying something every day, clever or foolish, which will have a chance of getting into print."

He spoke half in jest, yet he evidently more than half meant what he said.

"At any rate, you have some recent instances to support your theory," Dalton said, with a smile. They were lighting their cigars, preparatory to playing a fresh game of billiards, but Sydney was so much interested in the conversation, that, instead of taking up his cue, he stood with his back to the fire and continued it.

"Precisely so—there can be no doubt about it. Look at Flumley, and Warrington, and Middlemist—three of our own fellows, without going any further. What is there in them to command success, except not deserving it, and knowing that they don't? The modest merit and perseverance business is quite played out for any man of spirit. The only line to take in these days is that of cheek, pluck, and devil-may-care."

"Do you know, Campion, you have grown very cynical of late?" said Brooke Dalton, rather more gravely than usual. "I have been rather disposed to take some blame to myself for my share in the heartless kind of talk that used to go on at the Oligarchy. I and Pynsent were your sponsors there, I remember. You may think this an odd thing to say, but the fact is I am becoming something of a fogy, I suppose, in my ideas, and I daresay you'll tell me that the change is not for the better."