1856.]

Never lose sight of your Man.

of Wordsworth, who, sedate and serene, surveyed the crowd as if they were trees. The bland and disereet Sir Robert (the party was not confined to Whigs, but some of the chief men on the opposite side were present too) was gazing about with his deeply thoughtful eyes and dry shrewd smile, and looked as if he was saying to himself, with characteristic caution, 'Whatever embarrassment it may hereafter entail upon me, I am not going to deny that this is an agreeable party;' while Lord John, in his stately little way, stalked through the crowd as if he had full confidence in the British Constitution, and felt certain that it (as his peculiar and attached friend) would carry him through any difficulty. Mr. Hallam looked about him in his resolute manner, as if he was prepared to give the justest and most honest criticism upon any human affairs that might occur now, or might have happened in the Middle Ages. Further on, the future historian of England had a small circle around him, who listened enchained and enchanted by his marvellous talk; while that most pleasant companion, Mr. Monckton Milnes, moved about from group to group, enlivening everybody that came in his way. I was a very obscure and unnoticed personage at the time, and knew only a few of the young men there. At last I espied Milverton, sitting on a sofa, of course, with a stout gentleman of not very aristocratic appearance. We interchanged greetings, but I saw that Milverton was not to be seduced from the side of his portly friend. He must be some very important personage, said I to myself. Soon afterwards I brought two or three of my young acquaintances to look at him in the distance. Nobody knew him, but they thought he had a German countenance, a Teutonic cut of the gib.' A new or, as they tersely expressed it, ambassador was expected from Prussia-a great celebrity; perhaps Some one boldly declared it must be this was the ambassador. Humboldt, especially when a beautiful woman of the highest rank passed by the pair, and on the stout gentleman's being introduced to her, made him a most gracious bow. There was something, however, an indefinable something of condescension, as it seemed to me, in the bow, and my curiosity was still more aroused. Besides I wanted to get Milverton to talk to. Presently they got up and walked into the picture gallery, and while the supposed ambassador was lost in admiration before some large staring modern picture, I took Milverton aside for a moment, and said A most worthy man,' he replied; an Who is your fat friend?' He is the only excellent fellow, Mr. Brick, the new member for man in the House of Commons, I believe, who thoroughly understands our Water Rates Bill. I have great hopes that he will speak upon it; and, being an independent member, he will be listened to. Of course he will, he knows so much about the subject.'

6

-.

Now the beauty of the story is, that you may depend upon it that it was not as a matter of business that Milverton did this, but that of all the crowd there, Brick was the man who, for the moment, interested Milverton. More facts were to be poured into the wretched Brick's mind, in order that our Water Rates Bill' might be better argued. Other men might follow after Wordsworth, but to Milverton, Brick was a sonnet in himself. Milverton was wrapt up in the possible poetry of good water for Lambeth. I got off into a quiet corner to have a huge laugh by myself, and was found by one of the wisest and least jocose of my acquaintance, going into inexplicable guffaws.

DUNSFORD.

The worthy Mr. Brick fares ill amongst you in this story.

ELLESMERE.

By no means. Only you must admit he is not exactly the sort of person that, with poets and orators and philosophers present, a young man would naturally attach himself to. Since I have been in the House of Commons I have made his acquaintance, and have found him to be a first-rate Milverton had got hold of the right pig by the man for mastering details. But it is a delicious instance, is it not, of our friend's prosaic perti

ear.

nacity? Rightly is he followed by that grim bull-dog, Fixer. I suspect they were brothers in a former state of existence, but Milverton happens to have emerged into humanity first.

Hush. Here they come.

MIDHURST.

MILVERTON.

Ellesmere, you must not be ready to complain of being bored. If we are to do any good we must go over some of the old topics. First, with regard to elections. What a thing it would be to keep down election expenses! I have nothing to say upon that head, but what we have talked about over and over again. We must have no such things as hustings expenses. In every town a permanent hustings should be built, and until it is built, the expense of a temporary one should be defrayed by the town.

ELLESMERE.

'A Daniel! A Daniel come to judgment.' I assure you I have been mulcted pretty considerably in my legitimate expenses.'

How much?

MIDHURST.

ELLESMERE.

Between four and five hundred pounds. Our hustings expenses were £130; but I believe that is very little.

MIDHURST.

They ought not to have been a hundred and thirty pence. It is an outlay which should fall upon the country, and not upon the candidate.

MILVERTON.

This plan of having a permanent building would give a nice field, by the way, for architects to do something new. Our small towns in England are sadly deficient in public buildings. The building might also be connected with a public library and reading room. At any rate, candidates must not be put to any expense that can be prevented. The expres sion legitimate expenses' must be banished. What a blessing it is to get a good man to serve us as a representative. How much obliged we ought to be to him. We must save him every trouble and expense that

we can.

Then, my dear Dunsford, if you write to this Editor, get him to dwell upon, or to make his writer dwell upon, the waste of honours that has taken place in our time, and indeed since the commencement of the Georgian era. No waste is not the word,-insufficient use, and yet immense abuse of honours. Let him show that honours are part of the capital of government, which ought never to be misapplied or neglected. Sometimes, when I see how they are given, so that all people with a sense of humour smile when they read of the thing in the papers, I feel very sad at such a waste of good material. I do not believe that in the United Kingdom, taking in the islands Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, there is anybody who has a more abounding love of fun and humour than I have. But really to confer some distinction on a chance alderman, and leave some of the greatest men of our time unnoticed and undecorated, seems to me carrying a mediocre joke too far.

ELLESMERE.

Yes; and when a joke is prolonged through a century, it is apt to lose the first element of jocosity-surprise.

MILVERTON.

Well, then, if the Editor intends to work the subject about the choice of men, he will find a very remarkable passage in Mr. Lewes's Life of Goethe which will be of use to him. I can't recollect it exactly, but it occurs in what Mr. Lewes calls the Weimar period, I think; and is in laudation of the Duke's discernment. Goethe intimates that like recognises like, and that a great man will, as a matter of course, be

1856.]

Men before Systems.

141

surrounded by great men.* That saying of the great Unpronounceable, as I call him, will be rather a snub to those men in power who declare they can never find fit agents. You know you were all inclined to take this line against me the other day, but I put you down very decidedly, and I am afraid a little rudely. That is all that it occurs to me to add just at present.

DUNSFORD.

I am sure I have been an admirable judge, and have sat upon this not very soft or smooth log with an imperturbability that deserves applause from the Court below. And now I am going to make only one remark, which is, that I was delighted to see that both of you, Ellesmere and Milverton, agreed in putting men above systems, and that you did not talk to us in the way that Doctrinaires-that is the word I believe-are apt to discuss matters.

ELLESMERE.

No, no; we leave doctrine to you. There is a wicked friend of mine who says, 'Theology is the twilight of the human mind.' Our doings are for the garish day.

MILVERTON.

No system can prevent the influence, or do away with the responsibility, of persons in their individual capacity. It is to great persons, after all, that we must look for the soundest improvements. All systems are but machinery: they cannot design anew, and cannot adapt themselves to new circumstances. A great man is in himself a system-a living system.

ELLESMERE.

I am delighted, my dear Milverton, at any improvement, or attempts at improvement, in laws or offices or governments; but the old idea always comes back upon me which I have expressed to you over and over again, when we have had these conversations, what can all these improvements accomplish in smoothing away the real difficulties of human life? They are like the delicate attentions you pay to a man who lies tortured with a fever. You smoothe the pillow, and bring in fresh flowers, and shade off the light with affectionate care, and he is suffering all the while a raging pain which scarcely admits of any consciousness about trifles-a raging democratic pain, which reduces all men nearly to a level.

MILDRED.

Pain is a subject upon which we women may venture to speak, I believe. It does not seem to me that, except in rare cases, these delicate attentions are unheeded.

MILVERTON.

No, Milly is quite right. Your metaphor, Ellesmere, breaks down. Besides, I have always told you we may have life made less squalid-less absurd, even if it were to be equally miserable,-not that I believe it will

The passage referred to by Milverton must be the following, from the Duke's manifesto in answer to complaints at Goethe's appointment: In such a case I shall attend to nothing but the degree of confidence I can repose in the person of my choice. The public opinion which perhaps censures the admission of Dr. Goethe to my council without having passed through the previous steps of Amtmann, Professor, Kammerrath, or Regierungsrath, produces no effect on my own judgment. The world forms its opinion on prejudices; but I watch and work -as every man must who wishes to do his duty-not to make a noise, not to attract the applause of the world, but to justify my conduct to God and my conscience.

'Assuredly we may echo M. Dumont's sentiment, that the prince who, at nineteen, wrote those words, was no ordinary man.' He had not only the eye to see greatness, he had also the strong will to guide his conduct according to his views, untrammelled by routine and formulas. 'Say what you will, it is only like can recognise like, and a prince of great capacity will always recognise and cherish greatness in his servants." People saw that the Duke was resolved. Murmurs were silenced, or only percolated the gossip of private circles, till other subjects buried them, as all gossip is buried.'—Life and Works of Goethe, vol. i., book IV., chap. 3.

VOL. LIII. NO. CCCXIV.

K

remain so.

That man does not suffer quite so much, who knows several of the beautiful things that have been said, in all ages, about the particular misery he is suffering under.

ELLESMERE.

What a literary view of the question! Moreover, it is erroneous. The sensibility which has made the man more keenly appreciate these beautiful things, lays him open to keener misery in enduring them. But if we talk till doomsday we shall never agree upon these points.

MILVERTON.

I must give you an odd illustration of my view of the subject. You say remove squalidity, diminish abject misery; and still, notwithstanding all you can do, the main bulk of the misery remains.' But then I say, look how differently it may be presented to us. Now comes my illustration. I was once at a large theatre. The scene was to represent a room which the direst poverty had long made a home of. There stalked in a wretched man, and after him a wretched woman, who, in moving tones, with 'tears in their voices,' and with dignified gestures, bewailed their unhappy lot. He was a great actor, she a great actress, and they performed their parts to admiration. But I thought within myself, poverty cannot be represented in a theatre. The stage is too large for it. The misery which a man can bemoan over, striding up and down a large unoccupied space, and having room to think how miserable he is, is not the most abject misery. No: it is the squeezed up, crowded, squalid, half-suffocated wretchedness (which is never alone) that gives to humanity its saddest aspect. You will answer me-I see it already in your looks-that the people who suffer in this way do not know it, that they have not our feelings; and my reply would be, so much the worse.' One of Bacon's deepest sayings is about the lie which sinketh into a man.* So the poverty and the misery which sink into a man, and become as it were part of his nature, are surely the worst forms of poverty and misery. It cannot be a little thing to get a man out of that, or to take it out of him. It removes him into a higher order of being, and his suffering into a thing of higher essence.

DUNSFORD.

We must be careful, Milverton, that we do not overlook religion.

MILVERTON.

That remark of yours gives me a better illustration than the one I have used. If I could not remove a poor man's misery, and diminish his temptations, I should still be glad that he had a great cathedral, where, alone, and with some beauty and with some space about him, he might mourn and pray.

MIDHURST.

I am partly of Sir John Ellesmere's way of thinking; but I maintain that Mr. Milverton is apt to hope too much from statesmanship and official reform and governmental action, whereas it is the little things in life that make it beautiful-and comfortable.

DUNSFORD.

You are not just to Milverton. No man cares more about these little things.

MIDHURST.

You will all deride me, I know, and think me a very sensual man; but I wish Mr. Milverton would address his anxious mind a little more to the dinners of the people. [We all laughed, except MR. MIDHURST, who indulged in his little pleasant smile.] There are probably five million four hundred thousand dinners cooked in the United Kingdom every day. I do not care so much what becomes of the odd four hundred thousand dinners of the upper classes, but a little improvement in the cooking of the remaining five million would be a great comfort to my mind. I have

'But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.'-Essays—' Of Truth.'

1856.]

Common Things and Possible Improvements.

143

travelled over a large part of the world, and have nowhere seen so wasteful a neglect of good things as in England.

ELLESMERE.

How Lord Ashburton's movement about 'common things' must delight Mr. Midhurst.

MILVERTON.

It delights me, I know. Lord Ashburton is one of those men peculiar to England. I may be wrong, but I believe there are no such persons in any other European state; and with us they are not to be found amongst lords only. I know several Lord Ashburtons low down in life.

What do you mean?

ELLESMERE.

MILVERTON.

Why I mean persons who have no political ambition-who do not want to be prime ministers, or commissioners, or vestrymen, or beadles, but who have an abiding care for the public good; and, being almost free from vanity or interested ends, are very valuable in giving due weight to any public personage whom they discern to have a real interest in the public good. There is a great deal of nonsense talked in England about political adventurers, and many persons think a man cannot be a good politician who has not five thousand three hundred a year; but the truth is, your political adventurer, who may be a rich or may be a poor man, is a horrible creature-a fellow playing at cup and ball with the most interesting affairs of mankind, and whose speech or whose silence, in great crises even, is regulated by his own little vanity, or his own diseased lust of power.

ELLESMERE.

Be careful, be careful, Milverton, of what you say on this head. It is the fear of being called an adventurer that keeps many a good and wise man away from politics,-many a man whom you of all persons would delight to see in that sphere. You must not ignore ambition either; it is a fine thing in its way.

However, I must interchange a few compliments with my dinner-loving friend to the left-(Oh! by the way, I have such a story to tell you of a hunt we have had after truffles, only that is neither here nor there, for the present): I agree with him that even a little improvement in these five million dinners would be worth a good many of Milverton's projected reforms.

MILVERTON.

You do not see that the improvement in the dinners would distinctly follow from such reforms.

I

BLANCHE.

You must improve us first, before you can have better dinners.

ELLESMERE.

Improve you, indeed! Let us keep within the bounds of possibility. suppose, though, we might teach you to bake and to brew a little better, -and some of you, the most intelligent and docile, might be taught how to light a fire properly; but as to any great alteration of you, that is beyond our power. Many a gaby has married a woman whom he knew to be altogether unsuitable to him, but whom he thought he was gradually to mould into a perfect wife. Of course it ended by her influencing him far more than he influenced her. Women are more complete creatures, at least, less incomplete than we are. They are less affected by education, or by the want of it. By the way, this talking about men and women reminds me of something I have been longing to say during the whole of this morning's discussion. Mr. Midhurst objects to Milverton's great hopes for mankind from laws, and statesmanship, and other fine-sounding things, and obstinately brings him back to common life,-to dinners. I wish to bring him back to domestic life. You know, my dear philosopher, polish up the rest of human affairs as cleverly as you may, you cannot get over domestic misery. Will anybody ever love any other body at the right