This was the policy in practice now. Our foreign relations, being anything but friendly, were to be allowed to please themselves at our expense; while the gaze of the Country should be turned inward, and its hands employed in tearing their own vitality. Very grand measures were being prepared, for a fine subversion of established things; Liberal statesmen being quite convinced by their own condition, that the universe was wrong. Of all these projects the Country heard, with its usual self-complacence, growing more and more accustomed to be managed, and driven, by some half-dozen busybodies; according to the usage of democracies.
"We must make a stand somewhere," said sensible people; but left somebody else to make it. "I draw the line at this," or "I draw the line at that," declared the steadfast Briton; but if he drew it anywhere, it was only in the clouds. What could any single hand, or even a hundred stout men, with a hundred hands apiece, avail, when things were gone so far? The only man, who could extinguish the fire, was the very man blowing his large bellows at it; and in the headstrong weakness of his nature, he had shouted for a gentleman smaller than himself, but skilful in the manufacture of malignity.
So little desire had I, to share, in the rough affray impending, and so keenly did I feel my own helplessness, that nothing but Sir Roland's stern resolve could have held me to the pledge of public life. All I cared for was, to be allowed to take my Laura, who had promised to give herself to me; and it recked me very little how the public might be governed, if my home might boast so sweet a Queen. But, although Lady Twentifold had given her consent, and waived all obstacles of pride and birth, in the warmth of her good-will towards me, she made it a condition that we must secure the concurrence of her son, as the head of the family, and master of the race of Twentifold. And he (while as friendly to me as ever, and faithful to his promise not to interfere) sternly pronounced that he never would consent, until I had rendered some good service to the Country.
"How am I to do it?" I inquired, with sound reason. "Your condition amounts to a total forbiddance. I have no great abilities, as you are well aware. I shall never be an orator. I cannot even put ten big words together, without breaking down. To move the public ear now, the tongue must thunder forth a thousand thumping words, for every hollow tooth of meaning. And not only that, but a fellow must be able to work his words, so as to have two kinds of meaning—one for the public, and one for himself; when he finds it important to deny them. No, Roly, I shall never be distinguished. No honest man has any chance of that."
"How high can you go now, with a little indignation?" he asked, instead of answering me. "I know that you are practising; although you are so crafty, that no one has a bit of chance of seeing you. Why should you be shy of a power, so much rarer than the most entrancing eloquence? Prepare; you can never prepare too much. If I could only do what you can, Tommy, I would have a Dissolution in February, and be the Premier, after a very little practice. Why don't you let me know, how you get on?"
"Because you don't deserve it;" I answered with some spirit; and by this time he knew that I had some will of my own. "If you had said to me, about my darling Laura—'Tommy, you shall have her; and I trust to your own good feeling, not to leave a stone unturned, for the discomfiture of the Radicals'—you might have had me for your dog,—to sit up, or dance round the room, or jump over your handkerchief, at order. That would have been the wiser course for you to take."
I spoke with some emotion; and to my mind my words appeared altogether unanswerable. But he looked at me steadily, and his face expressed no sense of contrition. Neither did his answer.
"I considered all that; but I found it would be an entire mistake, so to trust you. Not from any doubt of your honour, my dear fellow, or desire to oblige me, after date. But simply because all your power would be gone. For a twelvemonth, after you have married Laura—supposing that such a thing ever comes to pass—there will be no possibility of stirring up any indignation in your system. She is so confoundedly sweet-tempered, that you (who have got too much of that already) doubling your stock—as married people do, at first—would regard the loss of India, or even a French invasion, with perfect equanimity; if they let you alone with your Laura. And without indignation, you have no wings now. I have taken the trouble to ascertain that point. And my settled conviction is, that after you are married, you will never fly again, until you have a good fight with Laura."
"What a very low, and coarse way you have of putting things!" I exclaimed with—as our Poets say—a mixture of emotions. Rapture, at the thought of ever having Laura; rage, at the base idea of ever falling out with her; and astonishment at Sir Roland's foresight, and grasp of the matter, in all its bearings. "Why, you look upon me, entirely as a subject for experiments!"
"Tommy," he made answer, with a smile so like my Laura's, (whenever she wanted to be funny) that his very worst sentiments might no more annoy me; "you are too fond of regarding things, from a narrow point of view. Science possesses no interest for me. I take facts, as I find them. I care not a stiver why you fly. I find that you do so; and that is enough. Science would wander about for years, asking everything she met, to explain the reason. But sense is quite satisfied with the mere fact; and proceeds at once to make it useful. Professor Megalow, who knows everything (except the iniquities of the Rads) has told me repeatedly, that there has not been, for some centuries, any Englishman superior (even in his finest moments) to the power of gravitation; except a certain Thomas Upmore. Now, I care not, two skips of a flea, for the fact that there have been, and perhaps still are, some exceptions, among American aboriginals, to a law supposed to be universal. The British public cannot see those fellows; and probably has never heard of them. But the British public can see Tommy; and though capable no longer of amazement—after all it has been dragged through—it is capable still of a mild surprise, and of rubbing its eyes, and of trying to think. Our duty it is, to promote that effort—a sore, and a stiff one at first, no doubt, after five years of Liberal surrender of that right. One rare gift, if properly used, may restore the use of another. Thought in the national body is as rare, as flight in the individual. Restore the defunct power, my dear boy; or at least restore the desire for it, which alone must prove fatal to the Radicals. And then, but not till then, will I hail you as my brother, in the flesh, and in the spirit."