"Of all truths, the surest is the truth well established by the behaviour of Britons for many years now,—one man may steal a horse and canter away, with every hat (even the owner's) tossed up, in applause of the brilliant proceeding; while the same man's first cousin, (who peeped through the hedge, at the dew on grass, or the daisies) lies groaning in the stocks, and perhaps touches his hat to the luck, which rides over everything. If any other man, of any English era, from Heptarchy to Hecatarchy, (that last child of Hecate) had stolen from his happy mead, and lashed into foam, and thrown upon his knees, with his strong back broken, that fine old nag the British Constitution; after the horse he would have had the cart—which is not his own order of placing them—and the cart would have been the one that drives to Tyburn."
Thus said Sir Roland. But owning no land, and no sentiments (therewith transmitted, and tripled at every other generation) I scarcely knew who had been stealing the horse, and only hoped that the nag would come home again. For a horse is the most sacred of all property, infinitely dearer than house, wife, or child—according to the precedents of English law—and very likely he deserves it.
But what did I care about horses, or hedges, or the clever man who made the horse jump the hedge, (ready-saddled that he might steal him) or even the state of the British Constitution, which passes through so many horse-chanting hands? My convictions were solid, and their grounds of the same character; all grouted in with concrete, and pointed with best Portland cement, and not a bit of lime-blow anywhere, nor any sign of job-work to be found in them. Yet I am not ashamed to say,—because I shall secure all honest sympathies—that if my orders had been to make tea for the man who stole the horse, and a bran-mash and litter, for the animal thus stolen, and to whistle to both of them, while they did their duties; the teapot, and the bucket, and the other necessaries, would not have been out of the reach of my arm.
But, why? As everybody has taken to ask now. "Why do you do this? And why don't you do that?" The last thing that any man should have to explain; because it leads him into a tremendous lot of lies. He has not the least idea, why he did a single one of them. But he can't say that; and he sets to with after-thoughts, like a man who builds his house of the chimney-pots.
In my case, however, there is no hard why. To the youngest, (or even the oldest) intelligence, the flexibility of my principles, (though granitic as above) needs no explanation, when I set before them Laura.
"Dear Tommy, don't be made a party man;" she said to me, just before Parliament met, and while I was holding a skein of floss-silk (which is difficult stuff to manage) that she might wind it for some lovely work.
"You are the party that makes me one;" I answered, with a sigh, to earn some gratitude; "can anybody question the purity of my motives, when he looks at you, dear?"
"I don't want compliments, instead of common sense, Tommy. Of politics I know next to nothing, although I hear so much every day. But all I hear is upon one side so much, that I cannot help thinking, what the other side may be; and sometimes I should like you to try it."
"Darling, have you any thought, that has not its image, and counterpart with me? Whatever passes through your most beautiful mind, at the very same moment comes through mine. Only yours is so very superior."
"No, Tommy, no. You must never say that, because I shall fear that you are laughing at me. Now, don't drop the silk—no, I don't look entrancing; and there was nothing whatever in the situation, to compel you to do it, or me to allow it. You keep on manufacturing excuses of that sort. And a rising Statesman should be above such conduct. Where was I? You have quite deranged my thoughts. Oh, about the present state of the nation, to be sure! Roly is a great alarmist; but I cannot see any harm at all going on; and I do hate wars, and faction-fights. Why need you go up, to take your seat at all? My father was in Parliament continually; but he took care never to go near it."