Who has not experienced the charm of the first time in his life, when totally removed from all the accidents of his station, the circumstance of his fortune, and his other belongings, he has taken his place amongst perfect strangers, and been estimated by the claims of his own individuality? Is it not this which gives the almost ecstasy of our first tour,—our first journey? There are none to say, “Who is this Potts that gives himself these airs?” “What pretension has he to say this, or order that?” “What would old Peter say if he saw his son to-day?” with all the other “What has the world come tos?” and “What are we to see nexts?” I say it is with a glorious sense of independence that one sees himself emancipated from all these restraints, and recognizes his freedom to be that which nature has made him.
As I sat on Lord Keldrum's left,—Father Dyke was on his right,—was I in any real quality other than I ever am? Was my nature different, my voice, my manner, my social tone, as I received all the bland attentions of my courteous host? And yet, in my heart of hearts, I felt that if it were known to that polite company I was the son of Peter Potts, 'pothecary, all my conversational courage would have failed me. I would not have dared to assert fifty things I now declared, nor vouched for a hundred that I as assuredly guaranteed. If I had had to carry about me traditions of the shop in Mary's Abbey, the laboratory, and the rest of it, how could I have had the nerve to discuss any of the topics on which I now pronounced so authoritatively? And yet, these were all accidents of my existence,—no more me than was the color of his whiskers mine who vaccinated me for cow-pock. The man Potts was himself through all; he was neither compounded of senna and salts, nor amalgamated with sarsaparilla and the acids; but by the cruel laws of a harsh conventionality it was decreed otherwise, and the trade of the father descends to the son in every estimate of all he does and says and thinks. The converse of the proposition I was now to feel in the success I obtained in this company. I was as the Germans would say, “Der Herr Potts selbst, nicht nach seinen Begebenheiten”—the man Potts, not the creature of his belongings.
The man thus freed from his “antecedents,” and owning no “relatives,” feels like one to whom a great, a most unlimited, credit has been opened, in matter of opinion. Not reduced to fashion his sentiments by some supposed standard becoming his station, he roams at will over the broad prairie of life, enough if he can show cause why he says this or thinks that, without having to defend himself for his parentage, and the place he was born in. Little wonder if, with such a sum to my credit, I drew largely on it; little wonder if I were dogmatical and demonstrative; little wonder if, when my reason grew wearied with facts, I reposed on my imagination in fiction.
Be it remembered, however, that I only became what I have set down here after an excellent dinner, a considerable quantity of champagne, and no small share of claret, strong-bodied enough to please the priest. From the moment we sat down to table, I conceived for him a sort of distrust. He was painfully polite and civil; he had a soft, slippery, Clare accent; but there was a malicious twinkle in his eye that showed he was by nature satirical. Perhaps because we were more reading men than the others that it was we soon found ourselves pitted against each other in argument, and this not upon one, but upon every possible topic that turned up. Hammond, I found, also stood by the priest; Oxley was my backer; and his Lordship played umpire. Dyke was a shrewd, sarcastic dog in his way, but he had no chance with me. How mercilessly I treated his church!—he pushed me to it,—what an exposé did I make of the Pope and his government, with all their extortions and cruelties! how ruthlessly I showed them up as the sworn enemies of all freedom and enlightenment! The priest never got angry. He was too cunning for that, and he even laughed at some of my anecdotes, of which I related a great many.
“Don't be so hard on him, Potts,” whispered my Lord, as the day wore on; “he 's not one of us, you know!”
This speech put me into a flutter of delight. It was not alone that he called me Potts, but there was also an acceptance of me as one of hier own set. We were, in fact, henceforth nous autres. Enchanting recognition, never to be forgotten!
“But what would you do with us?” said Dyke, mildly remonstrating against some severe measures we of the landed interest might be yet driven to resort to.
“I don't know,—that is to say,—I have not made up my mind whether it were better to make a clearance of you altogether, or to bribe you.”
“Bribe us by all means, then!” said he, with a most serious earnestness.
“Ah! but could we rely upon you?” I asked.