“They have already published their request,” said Raymond; “which I do not regret, because—”
“I regret it much,” said Toussaint. “It will incense France.”
“I do not regret it,” pursued Raymond, “because it renders necessary the publication of your refusal, which cannot but satisfy France.”
“On the point of Toussaint’s supposed ambition it may satisfy France,” observed Christophe. “But if Bonaparte be jealous of the influence of the First of the Blacks, this homage of the Assembly will not abate his jealousy.”
“Have you more messages for us, Raymond?—No. Then Monsieur Pascal and I will examine these reports, and prepare my replies. This our little council is memorable, friends, for being the first in which we could report of the entire pacification of the colony. May it be only the first of many! My friends, our council is ended.”
Chapter Nineteen.
Leisure for once.
Precious to the statesman are the moments he can snatch for the common pleasures which are strewed over the earth—meant, apparently, for the perpetual enjoyment of all its inhabitants. The child gathers flowers in the meadow, or runs up and down a green bank, or looks for birds’ nests every spring day. The boy and girl hear the lark in the field and the linnet in the wood, as a matter of course: they walk beside the growing corn, and pass beneath the rookery, and feel nothing of its being a privilege. The sailor beholds the stars every bright night of the year, and is familiar with the thousand hues of the changing sea. The soldier on his march sees the sun rise and set on mountain and valley, plain and forest. The citizen, pent up in the centre of a wide-built town, has his hour for play with his little ones, his evenings for his wife and his friends. But for the statesman, none of these are the pleasures of every day. Week after week, month after month, he can have no eyes for the freshness of nature, no leisure for small affairs, or for talk about things which cannot be called affairs at all. He may gaze at pictures on his walls, and hear music from the drawing-room, in the brief intervals of his labours; and he may now and then be taken by surprise by a glimpse of the cool bright stars, or by the waving of the boughs of some neighbouring tree. He may be beguiled by the grace or the freak of some little child, or struck: by some wandering flower scent in the streets, or some effect of sunlight on the evening cloud. But with these few and rare exceptions, he loses sight of the natural earth, and of its free intercourses, for weeks and months together; and precious in proportion—precious beyond its utmost anticipation—are his hours of holiday when at length they come. He gazes at the crescent moon hanging above the woods, and at the long morning shadows on the dewy grass, as if they would vanish before his eyes. He is intoxicated with the gurgle of the brook upon the stones, when he seeks the trout stream with his line and basket. The whirring of the wild bird’s wing upon the moor, the bursting of the chase from cover, the creaking of the harvest wain—the song of the vine-dressers—the laugh of the olive-gatherers—in every land where these sounds are heard, they make a child once more of the statesman who may for once have come forth to hear them. Sweeter still is the leisure hour with children in the garden or the meadow, and the quiet stroll with wife or sister in the evening, or the gay excursion during a whole day of liberty. If Sunday evenings are sweet to the labourer whose toils involve but little action of mind, how precious are his rarer holidays to the state labourer, after the wear and tear of toil like his—after his daily experience of intense thought, of anxiety, and fear! In the path of such should spring the freshest grass, and on their heads should fall the softest of the moonlight, and the balmiest of the airs of heaven, if natural rewards are in any proportion to their purchase money of toil.