Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 2 of 3

‘If you like, sir.’

‘“Pray, Mr. Wentworth,” she said, leaning over the ship’s side, as I was getting into the tug – “pray don’t send us any more Irish.”’

‘That may be, sir. We all know ladies have their whims and aversions as well as other people. But you don’t seem fond of the Irish.’

‘On the contrary, I admire them much. I envy them their ingenuity, their humour, their enthusiasm, their power of oratory, their pluck and spirit. I only wish them better led. A real union of English and Irish would, I believe, make us the first nation in the world.’

‘Then, you don’t think much of our leaders?’

‘Oh yes I do. They are clever men – far cleverer than our average M.P.’s – but they have put the people on the wrong scent. It is not justice Ireland wants. England and Scotland are quite ready to accord her that. The people of England have been the warmest friends of Ireland from the first. Indeed, she has had more justice done to her than England and Scotland. Her farmers have rights denied to ours; her representatives occupy almost entirely the attention of Parliament. Your leaders only play with the people, and make the wrongs of Ireland a stepping-stone for themselves to place and power. What Ireland wants now is a little peace. The people are dying of political delirium tremens. Said an Irish hotel-keeper to me one day, “What Ireland wants is more industry. Farmers’ sons won’t work. They prefer instead to go to fairs and races and public meetings. Irishmen won’t invest in any Irish enterprise, and if they do it is always a job they make of it.” I myself have known when Englishmen have gone to Ireland to establish manufactures to keep the people employed, that the foremen have been shot and the manufactories closed. You must have known something of the same kind, Father O’Bourke.’

‘It may be that there are difficulties between Irishmen and Saxon masters, and that these difficulties may have occasionally led to bloodshed and loss of life. We are a hot-headed people. We have besides the wrongs of many long centuries to remember. You recollect Sir Walter Raleigh, Mr. Wentworth?’

‘Blessings on his sacred head, I do! Did he not teach us to grow potatoes and smoke tobacco? I’d forgive a man a good deal in consideration of such lasting benefits.’

‘Please recollect he was one of the English who accompanied Lord Grey to the South of Ireland, and took part in the attack on a great castle there. All the inmates were slaughtered. A few women, some of them pregnant, were hanged. A servant of Saunders, an Irish gentleman, and a priest were hanged, also. The bodies, six hundred in all, were stripped and laid out upon the sands – “as gallant, goodly personages,” said Grey, “as were ever beheld.” Was not that murderous work?’

‘It was indeed,’ said Wentworth sadly. ‘But why treasure up such deeds of blood done ages ago? It is not Christian. The Bible tells us to forgive our enemies.’

‘But it is human nature. We Irishmen have long memories. Such things can never be forgotten or forgiven.’

‘There I think you’re wrong. Besides, in the case you refer to the victims were chiefly foreigners, who had no business there, who had come merely for the sake of fighting. What was done in barbarous times would not be permitted now. Let us strive to be better friends. You Irishmen come to England and we welcome you at the bar, on the press, in trade, in the army or navy, or the public service. I will go further still. It is a shame that when a bridge is to be built over the Shannon you have to come to London. You ought to manage your own local affairs. But England is an empire, and high-spirited, intelligent Irishmen would rather take part in Imperial politics than shine in a local Parliament. Home Rule will not satisfy the natural aspirations of an Irishman of talent. I met an old Dutch naval captain at Flushing who complained to me one day bitterly of the hardship of his lot. When he was born Holland was a part of France; now Holland was independent, and he was a citizen of a little principality rather than of a great empire. It will be so with the Irishman of the future – or an Irishman in search of a career.’

‘But, sir, is not a desire for Ireland’s nationality a reasonable one?’

‘Undoubtedly; but Ireland never was a nation. It was always torn with dissension; with leaders and lords ready to kill each other, only kept from doing so by England. No one would rejoice to see Ireland a nation more than I, but that is a dream of which I despair.’

‘But Home Rule will make Ireland a nation.’

‘How can you say that, sir?’ said Wentworth indignantly. ‘It is in the Protestant north that the strength of Ireland lies; it is there you meet intelligence and industry and wealth; it is there you see what Ireland might become. In all other parts of Ireland, what do you see but wretchedness and poverty? There is a permanent line of separation which not even Home Rule can obliterate.’

‘You are very outspoken, Mr. Wentworth – more so than is politic, I fear,’ said the reverend Father, with a bitter smile. ‘We have many Irish voters in this borough, and I fear they will be unable to give you their support; and Irish support is a matter of some consequence. In many borough elections they can turn the scale.’

‘Alas! I am quite aware of that; but I hold my opinion, nevertheless. The demand for an Irish Parliament independent of an Imperial one will come to the front, the Liberal Party will find themselves compelled to support it – ’

‘And then we shall have peace.’

‘No a bit of it! Then we shall have civil war. It was only a week or two since I was talking to a porter at the Limerick Station. He said to me: “The people want Home Rule. Let ’em have it, and there won’t be many of ’em left.” And I fear the porter was right.’

‘Why, who will there be to fight?’

‘The men of the North. I have no sympathy with Orangemen: they are hard and bigoted, and have done immense mischief in Ireland; but they will never be content with a Home Rule measure which will hand them over to their foes. Things are bad enough now, with England keeping both parties, to a certain extent, from flying at each other. What Ireland will be under Home Rule such as will be accepted by the Nationalists I shudder to contemplate.’

‘You are easily alarmed,’ said the priest, as he took his leave. ‘We shall have Home Rule, and for once Ireland will be at peace.’

‘I hope so, I am sure,’ said Mr. Wentworth, as the reverend gentleman left him alone.

CHAPTER XIX.

WENTWORTH RETIRES

Just as the Irish ‘praste’ walked out, a gentleman rushed in, breathless and unannounced.

‘Ah, my dear boy,’ said he, ‘in the language of Scripture I ask, What doest thou here, Elijah?’

‘Ask as much as you like,’ said Wentworth; ‘but I do not know that I am bound to answer.’

‘Wentworth, you are making an ass of yourself. You may think the language rather strong, but it is true, nevertheless. You know I am a candid friend, and I tell you this is not your place.’

‘I am almost of the same opinion.’

‘Let us look at the thing seriously. What is Parliamentary life but the dreariest drudgery going? – worse than that of the treadmill. The House meets at four, and rises God knows when. In any civilized community the House would meet in the day, and the business would be got through in a creditable manner. In that House you must remain night after night, never out of the sound of the division-bell or the call of the whip. There is a nice smoking-room, I own, but as it is, I believe you smoke too much. There is a fine library, but it is not so convenient for you as your own in Clifford’s Inn. I believe the dinners are not bad; but you are a philosopher, and prefer your roast potato and your mutton-bone —

‘“A hollow tree, A crust of bread and liberty.”

– to the dainties of the gourmand. On a hot night you can have a moonlight walk, to breathe the odours of the silvery Thames, and the chances are you will go home to be laid up with rheumatism.’

This latter aspect of the question was always a serious thing to the speaker. He was a medical man, and had constituted himself the guardian of Wentworth’s health. The two were warmly-attached friends. Buxton, for such was his name, had not made much way in his profession; in fact, he was not a lady’s man. He was rough in voice, blunt in manner, somewhat uncouth in appearance. He might have done for the army or navy; but as a general practitioner he had no chance.

Any respectable lady who had injured her health by tight-lacing or late hours, or her figure by high-heeled boots, or her complexion by cosmetics; any decent tradesman or substantial British merchant who had ruined his liver by a too generous diet and want of fresh air and exercise; any devoted parson who had induced – as he may well have done – softening of the brain, considering what he has to say, and to whom, not once a week, but all the year round, would have deemed Buxton, with his absence of all finesse, with his straightforward habit of talking, with his rude and, to them, impertinent and unfeeling questions, a brute; and thus Buxton spread out his net and displayed his head full of strange wares in vain. But he was honest to the core, and a genuine friend, with a love of science nothing could quench, and with a desire to benefit his neighbours, which in his case was its own reward.

His wants were not many, for he was a bachelor; and independently of his profession, he had a comfortable little property of his own. England owes much to her medical men. In the priesthood of the future they will not occupy the lowest scale. Already they rank amongst our greatest theological reformers. Undoubtedly one of the healthiest signs of the times is the attention paid by the modern Christian to that wonderful temple of ours, the human body, fashioned, as we would fain believe, in the Divine image by an Almighty power.

It is lamentable to see how at one time all trace of that elevating idea was lost sight of, and how widely it was accepted as a matter of course that this poor carcase, this earthly tabernacle, this vile body of sin and death, was, if the Divine life was to be kept alive, to be subjected to treatment which would have brought the wrong-doer within the four corners of any decent Act for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had such an Act been in existence. A good many of the sighs and groans accepted as evidences of exalted piety in past days, were more the result of earthly than of celestial influences – more due to the fact that the digestion was weak than that the spirit was strong; that it was ill with the body rather than it was well with the soul.

It was a common error not many years since – it may be that it exists more or less now – for pious people to assume that a dislike of this world, a shutting of the mental eye to all the wonders and glory of it as revealed by the sun that walks by day, and the moon that rules by night, was a sure sign of fitness for another; that maudlin sentimentalism was religion in its purest form, that to be unhealthy and miserable was to be a saint. We have got rid of that folly, at any rate, and a good deal of the credit of it is due to Dr. Andrew Combe, brother of the phrenologist, George Combe, whose popular phrenology and other works did much to arouse and enlighten the public mind.

It is not now that to treat the body decently is considered a sign of a low state of spirituality – that we hear it urged as an excuse for neglecting to take care of one’s health, the most precious talent given by God to man, that it is wrong to take any trouble about the flesh in a state of sin and under bondage, and in a few short years to be food for worms. Such talk was pitilessly flouted, if ever Buxton chanced to come within ear-shot of it, and good people, accordingly, in their abounding charity, fancied he was a sceptic, that he denied the faith, and was worse than an infidel. Buxton continued:

‘What can you do, what can anyone do in the House of Commons, but register the people’s will. It is outside the House, not within, that the battle of public opinion is fought. To you or me a Parliamentary struggle is neither more nor less than a trial of the outs to get into office, or of the ins to retain place and power; for, let them call themselves what they will – Tories or Radicals, Advanced Reformers or Obstructionists – no Government can exist in this country that does not represent public opinion, and does not do honest work for its living. It was so in the days of rotten boroughs, of Sir Robert Walpole, of Pitt and Fox, of Castlereagh and Canning and Sidmouth, and is still so now.’

‘I have said as much to you a thousand times,’ said Wentworth, smiling.

‘Of course you have. Like myself, you are a man of sense. If you were a barrister, I would say, Get into Parliament by all means. If you did not do any good for your country, you might get a good place for yourself. If you were a parson you could get a living.’

‘Ah,’ said Wentworth, ‘that reminds me of a good story; you recollect Thompson, who edited the Political Pioneer?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, he wrote, as you may remember, very violently and ridiculously in favour of the late Government. He took his articles to the right quarter, and asked for a reward. “If you were a barrister,” said the Government manager, “we could give you a berth; if you were a parson, we could give you a living. As it is, I fear we can’t help you.” Somehow or other Thompson managed to get ordained, and was given a living in the North, which he has been obliged to leave on account of drunkenness, and he is now back in town working at odds and ends on his old paper.’

‘Well,’ said Buxton, ‘I am not surprised at that. He never was a man for whom I had any respect, but I don’t want to see you shelved in that way. If you want office, of course you must get into Parliament, but I don’t think you care much about that sort of thing.’

‘No, I should think not.’

‘Then, what do you want to get into Parliament for? Think of the hypocrisy of public life. An independent M.P. is a nuisance to all parties, and can do no good. You dislike to hear the cry of the Church in danger, because you know the man who raises it means that he is afraid of losing his tithes. You laugh at the man who talks about preserving our glorious Constitution of Church and State, because you and I well know what he means is the preservation of caste and injustice. But is the Liberal politician much better, who, to keep his party in power, goes ranting about the country in the sacred name of Liberty and Freedom and Progress, and the Rights of Man? Depend upon it, there is little to choose between one set of men and the other. Both are equally selfish, equally thinking of number one, when they are most frantic for their revered leader, as they call him, or most eager to champion the masses; their care is the triumph of their party, mostly, too, with an eye to office themselves.’

‘Upon my word, I believe I have heard all this before.’

‘I believe you have, old boy, and as long as you keep such good company as you are in at the present time I believe you stand an uncommon good chance of hearing it again. There is nothing like line upon line, and precept upon precept. You can speak well, but you won’t have a chance of being heard in the House of Commons, where you will be muzzled in order that the officials may have their say. Besides, in the House speeches are mere make-believe. They never influence the voting. All that you can do is to vote black is white in the interests of your party, and is it worth while going into the House for that? Certainly not.’

‘Go on,’ said Wentworth sarcastically.

‘Thank you, I will. Then think of what you have to go through to into the House – the trouble you must take; the time you must waste; the money you must spend; the speeches you must make; the lies you must utter. You will have to tell the voters they are intelligent – you know the mass of them are nothing of the kind. You must make them believe that, if they do not strain every nerve to get you into Parliament, the sun will refuse to shine and the earth to yield her fruit. At any rate, if you do not say that, you will have to say something very much like it. You have got to make the voter feel that his vote will do away with the wrongs of ages, when you and I well know that in this land of ours nothing is done in a hurry if it is done well, and that, as Tennyson writes,

‘“Freedom broadens slowly down

From precedent to precedent.”

The time is coming when the only chance for anyone to get into Parliament will be either that he is a working man and can secure the votes of his class, or that he shall be some large employer of labour with a certain number of votes under his thumb, and Parliament will be little better than a parish vestry.’

‘Well, we have not come to that yet, and a man may do a great deal of good even in Parliament.’

‘Yes, he may, but he can do it better outside. It was an outside organization that carried the repeal of the Corn Laws, that carried reform in Parliament, that repealed the taxes on knowledge, that abolished West Indian slavery.’

‘Of course you mean the press.’

‘Of course I do, my boy. I repeat daily to myself the words of old Marvell, “Oh, printing, printing, how hast thou disturbed the peace of mankind! That lead, when moulded into bullets, is not so mortal as when formed into letters. There was a mistake, sure, in the story of Cadmus, and the serpent’s teeth which he sowed were nothing but the letters he invented.” Stick to the press, my boy, and don’t lower yourself by descending into the Parliamentary arena. It is long since the House of Commons was the best club in London, which conferred on a man prestige. It is now a place where the work is mostly dull, and always hard and unsatisfactory, and the company rather queer. Shall we give up to party what is meant for mankind?” Shall the blessed sun of day prove a Micker and eat blackberries?” Shall we harness Pegasus or Bucephalus to a common dray? Never, my boy, never!’

‘I hear you, Buxton, and the worst of it is that what you say is true.’

‘I am glad to hear you say so. Come back with me to town. Leave the borough to those who have nursed it. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib. An election is a matter of £ s. d. It is all very well to talk bunkum on the platform, but the wire-pullers want cash for themselves and to work with. When the masses are better educated, they will be proud to return a man like you.’

‘Well,’ said Wentworth, ‘I am of your opinion, and we’ll go back to town together.’

The mob, however, was determined not to let Wentworth depart in peace. They followed him with stones and mud until he found shelter in the station waiting-room.

‘Good heavens!’ said the station-master. ‘Mr. Wentworth, what a state you are in! What have you been up to? Who would have thought of seeing you in such a mess?’

‘Ah, Mr. Johnson, you remember me!’

‘I should think so, sir. We all missed you when you left Bethesda Chapel. But what have you been doing?’

‘Only speaking the truth to the free and independent electors of this enlightened borough.’

‘You mean casting pearls before swine.’

‘Well, I fear that is the proper way of putting it; but neither you nor I may say that in this place, and especially at this time.’

‘No, the people are half crazy, and most of them tipsy. They always are so at election time. I can’t say who are the worst, Liberals or Tories, rich or poor – they all seem to me bad alike. The fact is, parties are very fairly divided here, that the election is really in the hands of a few, who only want a debauch, and don’t care a rap for politics of any kind. The only question with them is, Who will spend the most money? But what are you going to do?’

‘Why, get out of the place as soon as possible.’

‘Well, perhaps that is the best thing you can do; but first let me see if I can’t help to make you look a little more respectable.’

The attempt was partly successful; and having washed and covered his rags with a great-coat, and exchanged his battered hat for a travelling cap, Wentworth took his seat in a first-class carriage, and, lighting his cigar, mused on the dangers he had run, and the disgusting scene of which he had been a witness.

‘Good heavens!’ said he to himself, ‘what a farce! And yet there are those who say, Vox populi, vox dei! Happily, as a rule, we get gentlemen in Parliament, and the result of an election is not bad on the whole. Shall we be able to say as much when a lower class of candidates are returned?’

The Liberal press were angry, and Wentworth came in for his share of abuse. He laughed as he read of his wickedness. Still more did he laugh as he thought of the people who had interviewed him – the needy Scotchman who sympathized with his manly struggle, had read his speeches with undying interest, who fervently prayed that he might win, and who, though he was not an elector, felt sure that Wentworth was a Scotchman, and would lend a brother Scot a small loan; the ladies who had endeavoured to capture him by storm; the collectors of various great societies who felt sure that Wentworth would not refuse to subscribe to their funds, as all the Liberal candidates had done the same; the stupid questions he had to answer; the slanders of which he had been the victim; the enthusiasm he had evoked; the temporary importance he had achieved. It was an experience which he would not have missed, and so far he was quite satisfied with the result.

CHAPTER XX.

A STORM BREWING

The elections were over; Parliament had met; the nobles of the land had returned to town as well as their toadies, and admirers, and imitators; and all was gay and glittering in the parks, at the clubs, and in Belgravian salons. The quidnuncs of society were as busy as bees. In our time the Church and the theatre are in equal request, and it is hard to say who is the winner in the race for public favour, the last new star at the theatre or the last pulpit pet; the last strong man of the music-hall, the newest favourite of the ring. We are a catholic-minded people, and are grateful to anyone who will give us something to talk about.

For once the shopkeepers of Regent Street and Bond Street were in good spirits. There was every prospect of a successful season. London was full, and there was no end of society balls and dinners. An Austrian archduke was to appear on the scene. One of the richest of the American Bonanza kings had taken a great house in Grosvenor Square.

The deserted palace of Buckingham would once more open its doors, and there were to be Drawing-rooms, whether as regards numbers or brilliancy rivalling any that had ever been held.

We had a strong Government, with a strong majority behind, and speculators on the Stock Exchange were buying for a rise. The Rothschilds of London and Paris and Vienna had all agreed that there should be peace, and it was also understood that a great German Chancellor had kindly condescended to intimate that for the present, at any rate, the sword might be sheathed, and that honest peasant lads, instead of being served up as food for powder, might be usefully employed in agricultural occupations, much to the joy of hotel-keepers on the Rhine, at Baden-Baden and elsewhere. Even in the valleys and mountains of the Alps, in the new nation of Italy, in the gilded palaces of the Sultan on the Bosphorus, there was unusual light-heartedness, for the Eastern Question was indefinitely postponed. The talk of the clubs had ceased to have any reference to politics. A great calm had settled everywhere in the East of London, where poverty makes men Radicals and Social Democrats, and in the West, where the only burning question of the hour is how to put off the day of reckoning to a more convenient season.

If it had not been for the occasional appearance of a wealthy American heiress, whose father had ‘struck ile,’ of a fair Anonyma on horseback, in an exquisitely-appointed equipage in some fashionable thoroughfare, or for a whisper of a scandal in high life, or for a wild adventure now and then of a man about town, or the unexpected collapse of a favourite on the turf, or the disgraceful bankruptcy of a pious banker, society would have been duller than ditch water. As it was, what to do with the heavy hours intervening between luncheon and dinner seemed a problem too difficult for human ingenuity – even when most fitly trained and fairly developed – to solve.