Lord Lamerton had been so excited by the article he had read that he was in a humour to find fault; and, as Viola says
“Like the haggard check at every feather
That comes before his eye.”
Such moods did not last long; he was the slowest of men to be roused, and when angry, the most placable; but an injustice angered him, and he had been unjustly treated in the article in that morning’s paper.
There must be deep in our souls, some original sense of justice, for there is nothing so maddens a man and sweeps him in angry fever beyond the control of reason, as a sense of injustice done, not only to himself, but to another. It is the violation of this ineradicable sense of justice which provokes to the commission of the grossest injustice, for it blinds the eyes to all extenuations and qualifying circumstances. It is an expansive and explosive gas that lies latent in every breast—in the most pure and crystalline, an infinite blessing to the world, but often infinitely mischievous. It is the moral dynamite in our composition.
There is a hot well in Iceland called Strokr which bubbles and steams far below the surface, the most innocuous, apparently, of hot springs, and one that is even beneficial. But if a clod of turf be thrown down the gullet, Strokr holds his breath for a moment and is then resolved into a raging geyser, a volcano of scalding steam and water. I once let a flannel-shirt down by a fishing-line, thinking to wash it in the cauldron of Strokr, and Strokr resented the insult, and blew my shirt to threads, so that I never recovered of it—no, not a button. It is so with men, they are all Strokrs, with a fund of warmth in their hearts, and they grumble and fume, but, for all that, exhale much heat, and nourish flowers about them and pasture for sheep and asses, but some slight wad of turf, or a dirty flannel-shirt—some trifling wrong done their sense of justice,—and they become raging geysers.
Lord Lamerton was not so completely transformed as that, because culture imposes control on a man, but he was bubbling and squirting. He was not angry with the tutor, personally, because he did not think that the young man was blameworthy. What indiscretion had been committed, had been committed by Arminell. With her he was angry, because her tone towards him, and her behaviour to her step-mother, were defiant. “Saltren,” said he, when he reached the smoking-room and was alone with Jingles, “do you think your uncle could have written that abominable article? I did not mention my suspicion in the breakfast-room, so as not to give you pain, or trouble the ladies, but, ’pon my soul, I do not see who else could have done it. I heard he had been down here on Sunday, and I hoped he had talked the matter of the line and Chillacot over with your father, and had given him sensible advice. Yet I can hardly think he would do such an ungracious, under the circumstances, such an immoral thing as write this, not merely with suppressio veri, which is in itself suggestio falsi, but with the lies broadly and frankly put. Upon my word—I know Welsh is a Radical—I do not see who else could have done it.”
“I am afraid he has, though I cannot say. I did not see him, my lord,” said the tutor.
“I am sorry, really it is too bad, after all that has been done—no, I will say nothing about that. Confound it all, it is too bad. And what can I do? If I write a correction, will it be inserted? If inserted, will it not serve for a leader in which all I have admitted is exaggerated and distorted, and I am made to be doubly in the wrong? And now, I suppose it is high time for Giles to go to school. I don’t want you to suppose that this idea of mine has risen in any way from this damned article, or has anything whatever to do with it, because it has not. I do not for one instant attribute to you any part in it. I know that it shocks you as it shocks me; that you see how wrong it is, as I do. But, nevertheless, Giles must go to school; his mother and I have talked it over, and between you and me, I don’t want the boy—dear monkey that he is—to be over-coddled at home. His mother is very fond of him, and gets alarmed if the least thing is the matter with him, and fidgets and frets, and, in a word, the boy may get spoiled by his mother. A lad must learn to hold his own among others, to measure himself beside others, and, above all, to give way where it is courteous, as well as right to give way. A boy must learn that others have to be considered as well as himself, and there is no place like school for teaching a fellow that. So Giles must go to school. Poor little creature, I wonder how he will like it? Cry at first, and then make up his mind to bear it. I do trust if he have his bad dreams, the other chaps won’t bolster and lick him for squalling out at night and rousing them. Poor monkey! I hope they will make allowance for him. He is not very strong. Giles must go to school, and not be coddled here. His mother is absurdly fond of the little fellow. I don’t want to hurry you—Saltren, and you can always rely on me as ready to do my best for you, but I think you ought to look about you, at your leisure, you know, but still look about you. And, damn that article, don’t you have anything to do with Welsh, he will lead you, heaven alone knows whither.”
“My lord,” said Saltren, “you forestall me. I myself was about to ask leave to depart. I have not the natural qualifications for a tutor; I lack, perhaps, the necessary patience. I intend to embrace the literary profession. Indeed, I may almost say that I have secured a situation which will make me independent. Secured is, possibly, too decided a word—I have applied for one.”