"I do not wonder," said I to Mr. Gerard, "it was a terrible revenge."
"Ay, but how much worse was the provocation; from the very man, too, placed in authority of him, whose duty was to foster, not to oppress him. Verily, they that are in honour, and understand not, are as the beasts that perish."
"True," returned I, "but then the wretch was dead."
"Just so, young sir," replied Mr. Gerard, impetuously, "was dead, and never felt the insult. The sailor felt both the insult and the lashes. How is it that, at your age, you have already learned to be the apologist of the rich in high places?"
"Nay, sir, I—?"
"Yes, you," continued my host with vehemence; "your pity is for the admiral, and does not descend to the captain of the maintop. Still," added he, in a milder tone, "I should not judge you harshly, even if you so judge others. You were brought up in India, were you not? where in the eyes of the cowering natives, to be white is to be powerful, and wise, and all in all—save to be good. Great heavens, what a retribution is waiting for us there!" Again my host paced the room, but this time rapidly, wildly, and uttering exclamations like a sibyl inspired by her god. "If the nabobs we see here are specimens of those who rule the East, Heaven help the ruled! What blindness, what infatuation! Do you know, young man, the very men that cause revolutions am the last to believe in them?" This was an observation so entirely beyond me, that I could only murmur that such was doubtless the case, although I did not remember having heard it remarked before. "It is so," continued Mr. Gerard, positively, "and it always has been so. It was so in France. I suppose you have always been taught to consider the French Republicans the vilest and wickedest of men, and the Revolution to be the mother that produced them at one monstrous birth. Yes, when the day of reckoning comes, and the ruin is undeniable, Democracy, forsooth, is blamed. The taunt is hurled—
'"Behold the harvest that we reap
From popular government and equality!"
Whereas, in truth, 'tis neither these, nor aught
Of wild belief ingrafted on their names
By false philosophy, have caused the woe,
But a terrific reservoir of guilt
And ignorance, filled up from age to age,
That can no longer hold its loathsome charge,
But bursts, and spreads in deluge through the land.'
High truth embalmed in noble verse, yet no one heeds. The author of those lines, my friend, is the greatest poet in Great Britain, and has never possessed an income of a hundred pounds a year. They say that my Lord Castlereagh has thirty thousand...—Stay, do you not hear wheels? That must be Sitwell's gig. I have not the patience to see him now. His sycophantic officiousness in fetching Sir Massingberd was too contemptible. How can a man who has two legs given him to stand upright upon, persist in grovelling through life upon all-fours?
'Heaven grant the man some noble nook;
For, rest his soul! he'd rather be
Genteelly damned beside a duke
Than saved in vulgar company.'
Do you receive him, Mr. Meredith; and tell him from me that it is no thanks to him that his patient is yet alive. Now that the siege is raised, I will just step in and see how the lad is getting on."