CHAPTER LXXII.
Good Mr. Knave, give me my due, I like a tart as well as you; But Iwould starve on good roast beef, Ere I would look so like a thief.--TheQueen of Hearts.
Nune vino pellite curas; Cras ingens iterabimus aequor. Horace.
The next morning I received a note from Guloseton, asking me to dinewith him at eight, to meet his chevreuil. I sent back an answer in theaffirmative, and then gave myself wholly up to considering what was thebest line of conduct to pursue with regard to Lord Dawton. "It would bepleasant enough," said Anger, "to go to him, to ask him boldly forthe borough so often pledged to you, and in case of his refusal, toconfront, to taunt, and to break with him."
"True," replied that more homely and less stage effect arguer, whichwe term Knowledge of the world; "but this would be neither useful nordignified--common sense never quarrels with any one. Call upon LordDawton, if you will--ask him for his promise, with your second bestsmile, and receive his excuses with your very best. Then do as youplease--break with him or not--you can do either with grace and quiet;never make a scene about any thing--reproach and anger always do makea scene." "Very true," said I, in answer to the latter suggestion--andhaving made up my mind, I repaired a quarter before three to LordDawton's House.
"Ah, Pelham," said the little minister; "delighted to see you look somuch the better from the country air; you will stay in town now, I hope,till the end of the season?"
"Certainly," my lord, "or, at all events, till the prorogation ofparliament; how, indeed, could I do otherwise with your lordship's kindpromise before my eyes. Mr.--, the member for your borough of--, has, Ibelieve, accepted the Chiltern Hundreds? I feel truly obliged to you forso promptly fulfilling your promise to me."
"Hem! my dear Pelham, hem!" murmured Lord Dawton. I bent forward as ifin the attitude of listening respect, but really the more clearly toperceive, and closely to enjoy his confusion. He looked up and caught myeye, and not being too much gratified with its involuntary expression,he grew more and more embarrassed; at last he summoned courage.
"Why, my dear Sir," he said, "I did, it is true, promise you thatborough; but individual friendship must frequently be sacrificed to thepublic good. All our party insisted upon returning Mr. V--in place ofthe late member: what could I do? I mentioned your claims, they all, toa man, enlarged upon your rival's: to be sure, he is an older person,and his family is very powerful in the Lower House; in short, youperceive, my dear Pelham--that is, you are aware--you can feel for thedelicacy of my situation--one could not appear too eager for one's ownfriends at first, and I was forced to concede."
Lord Dawton was now fairly delivered of his speech; it was, therefore,only left me to congratulate him on his offspring.
"My dear lord," I began, "you could not have pleased me better: Mr. V.is a most estimable man, and I would not, for the world, have hadyou suspected of placing such a trifle as your own honour--that isto say--your promise to me, before the commands--that is to say, theinterests--of your party; but no more of this now. Was your lordship atthe Duke of--'s last night?"
Dawton seized joyfully the opportunity of changing the conversation, andwe talked and laughed on indifferent matters till I thought it timeto withdraw; this I did with the most cordial appearance of regard andesteem; nor was it till I had fairly set my foot out of his door, thatI suffered myself to indulge the "black bile," at my breast. I turnedtowards the Green Park, and was walking slowly along the principal mallwith my hands behind me, and my eyes on the ground, when I heard my ownname uttered. On looking back, I perceived Lord Vincent on horseback; hestopped, and conversed with me. In the humour I was in with Lord Dawton,I received him with greater warmth than I had done of late; and he also,being in a social mood, seemed so well satisfied with our rencontre, andmy behaviour, that he dismounted to walk with me.
"This park is a very different scene now," said Vincent, "from what itwas in the times of 'The Merry Monarch;' yet it is still, a spot muchmore to my taste, than its more gaudy and less classical brother ofHyde. There is something pleasingly melancholy, in walking over placeshaunted by history; for all of us live more in the past than thepresent."
"And how exactly alike in all ages," said I, "men have been. On the veryspot we are on now, how many have been actuated by the same feelingsthat now actuate us--how many have made perhaps exactly the same remarkjust made by you. It is this universal identity, which forms our mostpowerful link with those that have been--there is a satisfaction inseeing how closely we resemble the Agamemnons of gone times, and we takecare to lose none of it, by thinking how closely we also resemble thesordidi Thersites."
"True," replied Vincent, "if wise and great men did but know, how littledifference there is between them and the foolish or the mean, they wouldnot take such pains to be wise and great; to use the Chinese proverb,'they sacrifice a picture to get possession of its ashes.' It is almosta pity that the desire to progress should be so necessary to our being;ambition is often a fine, but never a felicitous feeling. Cyprian, in abeautiful passage on envy, calls it 'the moth of the soul:' but perhaps,even that passion is less gnawing, less a 'tabes pectoris,' thanambition. You are surprised at my heat--the fact is, I am enragedat thinking how much we forfeit, when we look up only, and trampleunconsciously, in the blindness of our aspiration, on the affectionswhich strew our path. Now, you and I have been utterly estrangedfrom each other of late. Why?--for any dispute--any disagreement inprivate--any discovery of meanness--treachery, unworthiness in theother? No! merely because I dine with Lord Lincoln, and you with LordDawton, voila tout. Well say the Jesuits, that they who live for thepublic, must renounce all private ties; the very day we become citizens,we are to cease to be men. Our privacy is like Leo Decimus; [Note: SeeJovius.] directly it dies, all peace, comfort, joy, and sociality areto die with it; and an iron age, 'barbara vis et dira malorum omniumincommoda' [Note: See Jovius.] to succeed."
"It is a pity, that we struck into different paths," said I; "nopleasure would have been to me greater, than making our politicalinterests the same; but--" "Perhaps there is no but," interruptedVincent; "perhaps, like the two knights in the hacknied story, we areonly giving different names to the same shield, because we view it ondifferent sides; let us also imitate them in their reconciliation, aswell as their quarrel, and since we have already run our lances againsteach other, be convinced of our error, and make up our difference."
I was silent; indeed, I did not like to trust myself to speak. Vincentcontinued:
"I know," said he, "and it is in vain for you to conceal it, that youhave been ill-used by Dawton. Mr. V. is my first cousin; he came tome the day after the borough was given to him, and told me all thatClandonald and Dawton had said to him at the time. Believe me, they didnot spare you;--the former, you have grievously offended; you know thathe has quarrelled irremediably with his son Dartmore, and he insiststhat you are the friend and abettor of that ingenuous youth, in all hisdebaucheries and extravagance--tu illum corrumpi sinis. I tell you thiswithout hesitation, for I know you are less vain than ambitious, and Ido not care about hurting you in the one point, if I advance you in theother. As for me, I own to you candidly and frankly, that there is nopains I would spare to secure you to our party. Join us, and you shall,as I have often said, be on the parliamentary benches of our corps,without a moment of unnecessary delay. More I cannot promise you,because I cannot promise more to myself; but from that instant yourfortune, if I augur aught aright from your ability, will be in your ownhands. You shake your head--surely you must see, that there is not adifference between two vehemently opposite parties to be reconciled--autnumen aut Nebuchadrezar. There is but a verbal disagreement between us,and we must own the wisdom of the sentence recorded in Aulus Gellius,that 'he is but a madman, who splits the weight of things upon thehair-breadths of words.' You laugh at the quaintness of the quotation;quaint proverbs are often the truest."
If my reader should think lightly of me, when I own that I felt waveringand irresolute at the end of this spe
ech, let him for a moment placehimself in my situation--let him feel indignant at the treachery, theinjustice, the ingratitude of one man; and, at the very height of hisresentment, let him be soothed, flattered, courted, by the offeredfriendship and favour of another. Let him personally despise the former,and esteem the latter; and let him, above all, be convinced as well aspersuaded of the truth of Vincent's remark, viz. that no sacrificeof principle, nor of measures, was required--nothing but an allianceagainst men, not measures. And who were those men? bound to me by asingle tie--meriting from my gratitude a single consideration? No! themen, above all others, who had offered me the greatest affront, anddeserved from me the smallest esteem.
But, however human feelings might induce me to waver, I felt that it wasnot by them only I was to decide. I am not a man whose vices or virtuesare regulated by the impulse and passion of the moment; if I am quickto act, I am habitually slow to deliberate. I turned to Vincent, andpressed his hand: "I dare not trust myself to answer you now," saidI: "give me till to-morrow; I shall then have both considered anddetermined."
I did not wait for his reply. I sprung from him, turned down the passagewhich leads to Pall Mall, and hastened home once more to commune with myown heart, and--not to be still.
In these confessions I have made no scruple of owning my errors and myfoibles; all that could occasion mirth, or benefit to the reader werehis own. I have kept a veil over the darker and stormier emotions of mysoul; all that could neither amuse nor instruct him, are mine!
Hours passed on--it became time to dress--I rung for Bedos--dressed withmy usual elaborateness of pains--great emotions interfere little withthe mechanical operations of life--and drove to Guloseton's.
He was unusually entertaining; the dinner too was unusually good; but,thinking that I was sufficiently intimate with my host not to be obligedto belie my feelings, I remained distrait, absent, and dull.
"What is the matter with you, my friend?" said the good natured epicure;"you have neither applauded my jokes, nor tasted my escallopes; and yourbehaviour has trifled alike with my chevreuil, and my feelings." Theproverb is right, in saying "Grief is communicative." I confess that Iwas eager to unbosom myself to one upon whose confidence I could depend.Guloseton heard me with great attention and interest--"Little," said he,kindly, "little as I care for these matters myself, I can feel for thosewho do: I wish I could serve you better than by advice. However, youcannot, I imagine, hesitate to accept Vincent's offer. What matters itwhether you sit on one bench or on another, so that you do not sit in athorough draught--or dine at Lord Lincoln's, or Lord Dawton's, so longas the cooks are equally good? As for Dawton, I always thought him ashuffling, mean fellow, who buys his wines at the second price, andsells his offices at the first. Come, my dear fellow, let us drink tohis confusion."
So saying, Guloseton filled my glass to the brim. He had sympathizedwith me--I thought it, therefore, my duty to sympathize with him; nordid we part till the eyes of the bon vivant saw more things in heavenand earth, than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the sober.
VOLUME VII.
Pelham — Complete Page 72