Lord Culduff, attired in a very gorgeous dressing-gown and a cap whose gold tassel hung down below his ear, was seated at a writing-table, every detail of whose appliances was an object of art. From a little golden censer at his side a light blue smoke curled, that diffused a delicious perfume through the room, for the noble Lord held it that these adventitious aids invariably penetrated through the sterner material of thought, and relieved by their graceful influence the more labored efforts of the intellect.
He had that morning been preparing a very careful confidential despatch; he meant it to be a state paper. It was a favorite theory of his, that the Pope might be exploité,—and his own phrase must be employed to express his meaning,—that is, that for certain advantages, not very easily defined, nor intelligible at first blush, the Holy Father might be most profitably employed in governing Ireland. The Pope, in fact, in return for certain things which he did not want, and which we could not give him if he did, was to do for us a number of things perfectly impossible, and just as valueless had they been possible. The whole was a grand dissolving view of millennial Ireland, with all the inhabitants dressed in green broadcloth, singing, “God save the Queen;” while the Pope and the Sacred College were to be in ecstasy over some imaginary concessions of the British Government, and as happy over these supposed benefits as an Indian tribe over a present of glass beads from Birmingham.
The noble diplomatist had just turned a very pretty phrase on the peculiar nature of the priest; his one-sided view of life, his natural credulity, nurtured by church observances, his easily satisfied greed, arising from the limited nature of his ambitions, and, lastly, the simplicity of character engendered by the want of those relations of the family which suggest acute study of moral traits, strongly tinctured with worldliness. Rising above the dialectics of the “Office,” he had soared into the style of the essayist. It was to be one of those despatches which F. O. prints in blue-books, and proudly points to, to show that her sons are as distinguished in letters as they are dexterous in the conduct of negotiations. He had just read aloud a very high-sounding sentence, when Mr. Temple Bramleigh entered, and in that nicely subdued voice which private-secretaryship teaches, said, “Mr. Cutbill is below, my Lord; will you see him?”
“On no account! The porter has been warned not to admit him, on pain of dismissal See to it that I am not intruded on by this man.”
“He has managed to get in somehow,—he is in my room this moment.”
“Get rid of him, then, as best you can. I can only repeat that here he shall not come.”
“I think, on the whole, it might be as well to see him; a few minutes would suffice,” said Temple, timidly.
“And why, sir, may I ask, am I to be outraged by this man's vulgar presence, even for a few minutes? A few minutes of unmitigated rudeness is an eternity of endurance!”