This was so evidently true that the more prudent retired in silence; and even Sir Joseph after a short delay, during which he appeared to be strangely agitated, withdrew. The next week his failure was announced, in consequence of some extravagant risks on ’Change, and eventually I received but three shillings and fourpence in the pound for my bond of sixty-three thousand.
When the money was paid I could not help exclaiming mentally, “Property is in danger!”
The following morning Sir Joseph Job balanced his account with the world by cutting his throat.
CHAPTER V.
ABOUT THE SOCIAL-STAKE SYSTEM, THE DANGERS OF CONCENTRATION, AND OTHER MORAL AND IMMORAL CURIOSITIES.
The affairs of my father were almost as easy of settlement as those of a pauper. In twenty-four hours I was completely master of them, and found myself if not the richest, certainly one of the richest subjects of Europe. I say subjects, for sovereigns frequently have a way of appropriating the effects of others that would render a pretension to rivalry ridiculous. Debts there were none: and if there had been, ready money was not wanting; the balance in cash in my favor at the bank amounted in itself to a fortune.
The reader may now suppose that I was perfectly happy. Without a solitary claim on either my time or my estate, I was in the enjoyment of an income that materially exceeded the revenues of many reigning princes. I had not an ex-pensive nor a vicious habit of any sort. Of houses, horses, hounds, packs, and menials, there were none to vex or perplex me. In every particular save one I was completely my own master. That one was the near, dear, cherished sentiment that rendered Anna in my eyes an angel (and truly she was little short of it in those of other people), and made her the polar star to which every wish pointed. How gladly would I have paid half a million just then to be the grandson of a baronet with precedency from the seventeenth century!
There was, however, another and a present cause for un-easiness that gave me even more concern than the fact that my family reached the dark ages with so much embarrassing facility. In witnessing the dying agony of my ancestor I had got a dread lesson on the vanity, the hopeless character, the dangers, and the delusions of wealth that time can never eradicate. The history of its accumulation was ever present to mar the pleasure of its possession. I do not mean that I suspected what by the world’s convention is deemed dishonesty—of that there had been no necessity—but simply that the heartless and estranged existence, the waste of energies, the blunted charities, and the isolated and distrustful habits of my father appeared to me to be but poorly requited by the joyless ownership of its millions. I would have given largely to be directed in such a way as while escaping the wastefulness of the shoals of Scylla I might in my own case steer clear of the miserly rocks of Charybdis.
When I drove from between the smoky lines of the London houses into the green fields and amid the blossoming hedges, this earth looked beautiful and as if it were made to be loved. I saw in it the workmanship of a divine and beneficent Creator, and it was not difficult to persuade myself that he who dwelt in the confusion of a town in order to transfer gold from the pocket of his neighbor to his own had mistaken the objects of his being. My poor ancestor who had never quitted London stood before me with his dying regrets; and my first resolution was to live in open communion with my kind. So intense, indeed, did my anxiety to execute this purpose become that it might have led even to frenzy had not a fortunate circumstance interposed to save me from so dire a calamity.
The coach in which I had taken passage (for I purposely avoided the parade and trouble of post-chaise and servants), passed through a market town of known loyalty on the eve of a contested election. This appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the constituency had occurred in consequence of the late incumbent having taken office. The new minister, for he was a member of the cabinet, had just ended his canvass, and he was about to address his fellow-subjects from a window of the tavern in which he lodged. Fatigued, but ready to seek mental relief by any means, I threw myself from the coach, secured a room, and made one of the multitude.
The favorite candidate occupied a large balcony surrounded by his principal friends, among whom it was delightful to see earls, lords John, baronets, dignitaries of the church, tradesmen of influence in the borough, and even a mechanic or two, all squeezed together in the agreeable amalgamation of political affinity. Here then, thought I, is an example of the heavenly charities I The candidate himself, the son and heir of a peer, feels that he is truly of the same flesh and blood as his constituents; how amiably he smiles!—how bland are his manners!—and with what cordiality does he shake hands with the greasiest and the worst! There must be a corrective to human pride, a stimulus to the charities, a never-ending lesson of benevolence in this part of our excellent system, and I will look farther into it. The candidate appeared and his harangue commenced.