If I accede to this opinion to a certain extent, still I must protest against any feeling of real regret when I think that success is much oftener obtained by what is called a “lucky hit,” than by years of zealous and intelligent exertion. I have known a man obtain credit for stopping a courier—waylaying him, I might rather call it—and taking by force a secret treaty from his hand, while the steady services of a life-long have gone unrewarded. These things have an evil influence upon diplomacy as a “career;” they suggest to young men to rely rather on address and dexterity than upon “prudence and forethought.” Because Lord Palmerston discourses foreign politics with a certain gifted and very beautiful Countess, or that M. Guizot deigns to take counsel from a most accomplished Princess of Russian origin, every small Attaché thinks he is climbing the short road to fame and honours by listening to the fadaise of certain political boudoirs, and hearing “pretty ladies talk” about Spielberg and Monkopf. When the Northern minister sent his son to travel through the world, that he might see with his own eyes by what “commonplace mortals states were governed,” he might have recommended to his especial notice Plenipo’s and Envoys Extraordinary. From time to time, it is otherwise. Lord Castlereagh, whatever detraction party hate may visit on his home politics, was a consummate Ambassador. Not of that school which Talleyrand created, and of which he was the head, but a man of unflinching courage, high determination, and who, with a strong purpose and resolute will, never failed to make felt the influence of a nation he so worthily represented. With this, he was a perfect courtier; the extreme simplicity of his manner and address was accompanied by an elegance and a style of the most marked distinction. Another, but of a different stamp, was Lord Whitworth; one on whom all the dramatic passion and practised outrage of Napoleon had no effect whatever.
Sir Gordon remarked, that in this quality of coolness and imperturbability he never saw any one surpass his friend, Sir Robert Darcy. One evening when playing at whist, at Potzdam, with the late King of Prussia, his Majesty, in a fit of inadvertence, appropriated to himself several gold pieces belonging to Sir Robert. The King at last perceived and apologised for his mistake, adding, “Why did you not inform me of it?” “Because I knew your Majesty always makes restitution when you have obtained time for reflection.” Hanover was then on the tapis, and the King felt the allusion. I must not forget a trait of that peculiar sarcastic humour for which Sir Robert was famous. Although a Whig—an old blue-and-yellow of the Fox school—he hated more than any man that mongrel party which, under the name of Whigs, have carried on the Opposition in Parliament for so many years; and of that party, a certain well-known advocate for economical reforms came in for his most especial detestation: perhaps he detested him particularly, because he had desecrated the high ground of Oppositional attack, and brought it down to paltry cavillings about the sums accorded to poor widows on the Pension List, or the amount of sealing-wax consumed in the Foreign Office. When, therefore, the honourable and learned gentleman, in the course of a continental tour, happened to pass through the city where Sir Robert lived as ambassador, he received a card of invitation to dinner, far more on account of a certain missive from the Foreign Office, than from any personal claims he was possessed of. The Member of Parliament was a gourmand of the first water; he had often heard of Sir Robert’s cuisine—various travellers had told him that such a table could not be surpassed, and so, although desirous of getting forward, he countermanded his horses, and accepted the invitation.
Sir Robert, whose taste for good living was indisputable, no sooner read the note acceding to his request than he called his attachés together, and said, “Gentlemen, you will have a very bad dinner to-day, but I request you will all dine here, as I have a particular object in expressing the wish.”
Dinner-hour came; and after the usual ceremony the party were seated at table, when a single soup appeared: this was followed by a dish of fish, and then, without entrée or hors d’oevre, came a boiled leg of mutton, Sir Robert premising to his guest that it was to have no successor: adding, “You see, sir, what a poor entertainment I have provided for you; but to this have the miserable economists in Parliament brought us—next session may carry it further, and leave us without even so much.” Joseph was sold, and never forgot it since.
I saw, that while Sir Gordon and I discussed people and events in this strain, Lucy became inattentive and pre-occupied by other thoughts; and on charging her with being so, she laughingly remarked that Englishmen always carry about with them the one range of topics; and whether they dine in Grosvenor Square, or beneath an olive-tree in the Alps, the stream of the table-talk is ever the same. “Now a Frenchman,” said she, gaily, “had uttered I cannot say how many flat sentimentalisme about the place we are in; a German had mysticised to no end; and an Italian would have been improvising about every thing, from the wire that restrained the champagne cork to the woes of enchained Italy. Tell us a story, Mr. Templeton.”
“A story! What shall it be? A love story? a ghost story? a merry, or a sad one?”
“Any of these you like, so that it be true. Tell me something that has actually happened.”
“That is really telling a secret,” said I; “for while truth can be, and oftener is, stranger than fiction, it is so, rather from turning ordinary materials to extraordinary uses—making of every-day people singular instances of vice and virtue—than for any great peculiarity in the catastrophes to which they contribute.”
“Well, I don’t believe in the notion of everyday people. I have a theory, that what are so summarily disposed of in this fashion are just as highly endowed with individualities as any others. Do you remember a beautiful remark, made in the shape of a rebuke, that Scott one day gave his daughter for saying that something was ‘Vulgar?’ ‘Do you know what is the meaning of the word vulgar? It is only common; and nothing that is common, except wickedness, can deserve to be spoken of in terms of contempt: and when you have lived to my years, you will be disposed to agree with me in thanking God that nothing really worth having or caring about in this world is uncommon.’”
“When I said ordinary, every-day people, don’t mistake me; I meant only those who, from class and condition, follow a peculiar ritual, and live after a certain rubric of fashion; and who, hiding themselves under a common garment, whose cut, colour, and mode are the same, are really undistinguishable, save on great and trying occasions.