Coningsby
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Benjamin Disraeli >> Coningsby
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'You are, indeed, a friend; and had I debts I would ask you to pay them. I
have nothing of the kind. My grandfather was so lavish in his allowance to
me that I never got into difficulties. Besides, there are horses and
things without end which I must sell, and money at Drummonds'.'
'That will produce your outfit, whatever the course you adopt. I conceive
there are two careers which deserve your consideration. In the first place
there is Diplomacy. If you decide upon that, I can assist you. There exist
between me and the Minister such relations that I can at once secure you
that first step which is so difficult to obtain. After that, much, if not
all, depends on yourself. But I could advance you, provided you were
capable. You should, at least, not languish for want of preferment. In an
important post, I could throw in your way advantages which would soon
permit you to control cabinets. Information commands the world. I doubt
not your success, and for such a career, speedy. Let us assume it as a
fact. Is it a result satisfactory? Suppose yourself in a dozen years a
Plenipotentiary at a chief court, or at a critical post, with a red ribbon
and the Privy Council in immediate perspective; and, after a lengthened
career, a pension and a peerage. Would that satisfy you? You don't look
excited. I am hardly surprised. In your position it would not satisfy me.
A Diplomatist is, after all, a phantom. There is a want of nationality
about his being. I always look upon Diplomatists as the Hebrews of
politics; without country, political creeds, popular convictions, that
strong reality of existence which pervades the career of an eminent
citizen in a free and great country.'
'You read my thoughts,' said Coningsby. 'I should be sorry to sever myself
from England.'
'There remains then the other, the greater, the nobler career,' said
Sidonia, 'which in England may give you all, the Bar. I am absolutely
persuaded that with the requisite qualifications, and with perseverance,
success at the Bar is certain. It may be retarded or precipitated by
circumstances, but cannot be ultimately affected. You have a right to
count with your friends on no lack of opportunities when you are ripe for
them. You appear to me to have all the qualities necessary for the Bar;
and you may count on that perseverance which is indispensable, for the
reason I have before mentioned, because it will be sustained by your
experience.'
'I have resolved,' said Coningsby; 'I will try for the Great Seal.'
CHAPTER IV.
Alone in his chambers, no longer under the sustaining influence of
Sidonia's converse and counsel, the shades of night descending and bearing
gloom to the gloomy, all the excitement of his spirit evaporated, the
heart of Coningsby sank. All now depended on himself, and in that self he
had no trust. Why should he succeed? Success was the most rare of results.
Thousands fail; units triumph. And even success could only be conducted to
him by the course of many years. His career, even if prosperous, was now
to commence by the greatest sacrifice which the heart of man could be
called upon to sustain. Upon the stern altar of his fortunes he must
immolate his first and enduring love. Before, he had a perilous position
to offer Edith; now he had none. The future might then have aided them;
there was no combination which could improve his present. Under any
circumstances he must, after all his thoughts and studies, commence a new
novitiate, and before he could enter the arena must pass years of silent
and obscure preparation. 'Twas very bitter. He looked up, his eye caught
that drawing of the towers of Hellingsley which she had given him in the
days of their happy hearts. That was all that was to remain of their
loves. He was to bear it to the future scene of his labours, to remind him
through revolving years of toil and routine, that he too had had his
romance, had roamed in fair gardens, and whispered in willing ears the
secrets of his passion. That drawing was to become the altar-piece of his
life.
Coningsby passed an agitated night of broken sleep, waking often with a
consciousness of having experienced some great misfortune, yet with an
indefinite conception of its nature. He woke exhausted and dispirited. It
was a gloomy day, a raw north-easter blowing up the cloisters of the
Albany, in which the fog was lingering, the newspaper on his breakfast-
table, full of rumoured particulars of his grandfather's will, which had
of course been duly digested by all who knew him. What a contrast to St.
Genevieve! To the bright, bracing morn of that merry Christmas! That
radiant and cheerful scene, and those gracious and beaming personages,
seemed another world and order of beings to the one he now inhabited, and
the people with whom he must now commune. The Great Seal indeed! It was
the wild excitement of despair, the frenzied hope that blends inevitably
with absolute ruin, that could alone have inspired such a hallucination!
His unstrung heart deserted him. His energies could rally no more. He gave
orders that he was at home to no one; and in his morning gown and
slippers, with his feet resting on the fireplace, the once high-souled and
noble-hearted Coningsby delivered himself up to despair.
The day passed in a dark trance rather than a reverie. Nothing rose to his
consciousness. He was like a particle of chaos; at the best, a glimmering
entity of some shadowy Hades. Towards evening the wind changed, the fog
dispersed, there came a clear starry night, brisk and bright. Coningsby
roused himself, dressed, and wrapping his cloak around him, sallied forth.
Once more in the mighty streets, surrounded by millions, his petty griefs
and personal fortunes assumed their proper position. Well had Sidonia
taught him, view everything in its relation to the rest. 'Tis the secret
of all wisdom. Here was the mightiest of modern cities; the rival even of
the most celebrated of the ancient. Whether he inherited or forfeited
fortunes, what was it to the passing throng? They would not share his
splendour, or his luxury, or his comfort. But a word from his lip, a
thought from his brain, expressed at the right time, at the right place,
might turn their hearts, might influence their passions, might change
their opinions, might affect their destiny. Nothing is great but the
personal. As civilisation advances, the accidents of life become each day
less important. The power of man, his greatness and his glory, depend on
essential qualities. Brains every day become more precious than blood. You
must give men new ideas, you must teach them new words, you must modify
their manners, you must change their laws, you must root out prejudices,
subvert convictions, if you wish to be great. Greatness no longer depends
on rentals, the world is too rich; nor on pedigrees, the world is too
knowing.
'The greatness of this city destroys my misery,' said Coningsby, 'and my
genius shall conquer its greatness.'
This conviction of power in the midst of despair was a revelation of
intrinsic strength. It is indeed the test of a creative spirit. From that
moment all petty fears for an ordinary future quitted him. He felt that he
must be prepared for great sacrifices, for infinite suffering; that there
must devolve on him a bitter inheritance of obscurity, struggle, envy, and
hatred, vulgar prejudice, base criticism, petty hostilities, but the dawn
would break, and the hour arrive, when the welcome morning hymn of his
success and his fame would sound and be re-echoed.
He returned to his rooms; calm, resolute. He slept the deep sleep of a man
void of anxiety, that has neither hope nor fear to haunt his visions, but
is prepared to rise on the morrow collected for the great human struggle.
And the morning came. Fresh, vigorous, not rash or precipitate, yet
determined to lose no time in idle meditation, Coningsby already resolved
at once to quit his present residence, was projecting a visit to some
legal quarter, where he intended in future to reside, when his servant
brought him a note. The handwriting was feminine. The note was from Flora.
The contents were brief. She begged Mr. Coningsby, with great earnestness,
to do her the honour and the kindness of calling on her at his earliest
convenience, at the hotel in Brook Street where she now resided.
It was an interview which Coningsby would rather have avoided; yet it
seemed to him, after a moment's reflection, neither just, nor kind, nor
manly, to refuse her request. Flora had not injured him. She was, after
all, his kin. Was it for a moment to be supposed that he was envious of
her lot? He replied, therefore, that in an hour he would wait upon her.
In an hour, then, two individuals are to be brought together whose first
meeting was held under circumstances most strangely different. Then
Coningsby was the patron, a generous and spontaneous one, of a being
obscure, almost friendless, and sinking under bitter mortification. His
favour could not be the less appreciated because he was the chosen
relative of a powerful noble. That noble was no more; his vast inheritance
had devolved on the disregarded, even despised actress, whose suffering
emotions Coningsby had then soothed, and whose fortune had risen on the
destruction of all his prospects, and the balk of all his aspirations.
Flora was alone when Coningsby was ushered into the room. The extreme
delicacy of her appearance was increased by her deep mourning; and seated
in a cushioned chair, from which she seemed to rise with an effort, she
certainly presented little of the character of a fortunate and prosperous
heiress.
'You are very good to come to me,' she said, faintly smiling.
Coningsby extended his hand to her affectionately, in which she placed her
own, looking down much embarrassed.
'You have an agreeable situation here,' said Coningsby, trying to break
the first awkwardness of their meeting.
'Yes; but I hope not to stop here long?'
'You are going abroad?'
'No; I hope never to leave England!'
There was a slight pause; and then Flora sighed and said,
'I wish to speak to you on a subject that gives me pain; yet of which I
must speak. You think I have injured you?'
'I am sure,' said Coningsby, in a tone of great kindness, 'that you could
injure no one.'
'I have robbed you of your inheritance.'
'It was not mine by any right, legal or moral. There were others who might
have urged an equal claim to it; and there are many who will now think
that you might have preferred a superior one.'
'You had enemies; I was not one. They sought to benefit themselves by
injuring you. They have not benefited themselves; let them not say that
they have at least injured you.'
'We will not care what they say,' said Coningsby; 'I can sustain my lot.'
'Would that I could mine!' said Flora. She sighed again with a downcast
glance. Then looking up embarrassed and blushing deeply, she added, 'I
wish to restore to you that fortune of which I have unconsciously and
unwillingly deprived you.'
'The fortune is yours, dear Flora, by every right,' said Coningsby, much
moved; 'and there is no one who wishes more fervently that it may
contribute to your happiness than I do.'
'It is killing me,' said Flora, mournfully; then speaking with unusual
animation, with a degree of excitement, she continued, 'I must tell what I
feel. This fortune is yours. I am happy in the inheritance, if you
generously receive it from me, because Providence has made me the means of
baffling your enemies. I never thought to be so happy as I shall be if you
will generously accept this fortune, always intended for you. I have lived
then for a purpose; I have not lived in vain; I have returned to you some
service, however humble, for all your goodness to me in my unhappiness.'
'You are, as I have ever thought you, the kindest and most tender-hearted
of beings. But you misconceive our mutual positions, my gentle Flora. The
custom of the world does not permit such acts to either of us as you
contemplate. The fortune is yours. It is left you by one on whose
affections you had the highest claim. I will not say that so large an
inheritance does not bring with it an alarming responsibility; but you are
not unequal to it. Have confidence in yourself. You have a good heart; you
have good sense; you have a well-principled being. Your spirit will mount
with your fortunes, and blend with them. You will be happy.'
'And you?'
'I shall soon learn to find content, if not happiness, from other
sources,' said Coningsby; 'and mere riches, however vast, could at no time
have secured my felicity.'
'But they may secure that which brings felicity,' said Flora, speaking in
a choking voice, and not meeting the glance of Coningsby. 'You had some
views in life which displeased him who has done all this; they may be,
they must be, affected by this fatal caprice. Speak to me, for I cannot
speak, dear Mr. Coningsby; do not let me believe that I, who would
sacrifice my life for your happiness, am the cause of such calamities!'
'Whatever be my lot, I repeat I can sustain it,' said Coningsby, with a
cheek of scarlet.
'Ah! he is angry with me,' exclaimed Flora; 'he is angry with me!' and the
tears stole down her pale cheek.
'No, no, no! dear Flora; I have no other feelings to you than those of
affection and respect,' and Coningsby, much agitated, drew his chair
nearer to her, and took her hand. 'I am gratified by these kind wishes,
though they are utterly impracticable; but they are the witnesses of your
sweet disposition and your noble spirit. There never shall exist between
us, under any circumstances, other feelings than those of kin and
kindness.'
He rose as if to depart. When she saw that, she started, and seemed to
summon all her energies.
'You are going,' she exclaimed, 'and I have said nothing, I have said
nothing; and I shall never see you again. Let me tell you what I mean.
This fortune is yours; it must be yours. It is an arrow in my heart. Do
not think I am speaking from a momentary impulse. I know myself. I have
lived so much alone, I have had so little to deceive or to delude me, that
I know myself. If you will not let me do justice you declare my doom. I
cannot live if my existence is the cause of all your prospects being
blasted, and the sweetest dreams of your life being defeated. When I die,
these riches will be yours; that you cannot prevent. Refuse my present
offer, and you seal the fate of that unhappy Flora whose fragile life has
hung for years on the memory of your kindness.'
'You must not say these words, dear Flora; you must not indulge in these
gloomy feelings. You must live, and you must live happily. You have every
charm and virtue which should secure happiness. The duties and the
affections of existence will fall to your lot. It is one that will always
interest me, for I shall ever be your friend. You have conferred on me one
of the most delightful of feelings, gratitude, and for that I bless you. I
will soon see you again.' Mournfully he bade her farewell.
CHAPTER V.
About a week after this interview with Flora, as Coningsby one morning was
about to sally forth from the Albany to visit some chambers in the Temple,
to which his notice had been attracted, there was a loud ring, a bustle in
the hall, and Henry Sydney and Buckhurst were ushered in.
There never was such a cordial meeting; and yet the faces of his friends
were serious. The truth is, the paragraphs in the newspapers had
circulated in the country, they had written to Coningsby, and after a
brief delay he had confirmed their worst apprehensions. Immediately they
came up to town. Henry Sydney, a younger son, could offer little but
sympathy, but he declared it was his intention also to study for the bar,
so that they should not be divided. Buckhurst, after many embraces and
some ordinary talk, took Coningsby aside, and said, 'My dear fellow, I
have no objection to Henry Sydney hearing everything I say, but still
these are subjects which men like to be discussed in private. Of course I
expect you to share my fortune. There is enough for both. We will have an
exact division.'
There was something in Buckhurst's fervent resolution very lovable and a
little humorous, just enough to put one in good temper with human nature
and life. If there were any fellow's fortune in the world that Coningsby
would share, Buckhurst's would have had the preference; but while he
pressed his hand, and with a glance in which a tear and a smile seemed to
contend for mastery, he gently indicated why such arrangements were, with
our present manners, impossible.
'I see,' said Buckhurst, after a moment's thought, 'I quite agree with
you. The thing cannot be done; and, to tell you the truth, a fortune is a
bore. What I vote that we three do at once is, to take plenty of ready-
money, and enter the Austrian service. By Jove! it is the only thing to
do.'
'There is something in that,' said Coningsby. 'In the meantime, suppose
you two fellows walk with me to the Temple, for I have an appointment to
look at some chambers.'
It was a fine day, and it was by no means a gloomy walk. Though the two
friends had arrived full of indignation against Lord Monmouth, and
miserable about their companion, once more in his society, and finding
little difference in his carriage, they assumed unconsciously their
habitual tone. As for Buckhurst, he was delighted with the Temple, which
he visited for the first time. The name enchanted him. The tombs in the
church convinced him that the Crusades were the only career. He would have
himself become a law student if he might have prosecuted his studies in
chain armour. The calmer Henry Sydney was consoled for the misfortunes of
Coningsby by a fanciful project himself to pass a portion of his life amid
these halls and courts, gardens and terraces, that maintain in the heart
of a great city in the nineteenth century, so much of the grave romance
and picturesque decorum of our past manners. Henry Sydney was sanguine; he
was reconciled to the disinheritance of Coningsby by the conviction that
it was a providential dispensation to make him a Lord Chancellor.
These faithful friends remained in town with Coningsby until he was
established in Paper Buildings, and had become a pupil of a celebrated
special pleader. They would have remained longer had not he himself
suggested that it was better that they should part. It seemed a terrible
catastrophe after all the visions of their boyish days, their college
dreams, and their dazzling adventures in the world.
'And this is the end of Coningsby, the brilliant Coningsby, that we all
loved, that was to be our leader!' said Buckhurst to Lord Henry as they
quitted him. 'Well, come what may, life has lost something of its bloom.'
'The great thing now,' said Lord Henry, 'is to keep up the chain of our
friendship. We must write to him very often, and contrive to be frequently
together. It is dreadful to think that in the ways of life our hearts may
become estranged. I never felt more wretched than I do at this moment, and
yet I have faith that we shall not lose him.'
'Amen!' said Buckhurst; 'but I feel my plan about the Austrian service
was, after all, the only thing. The Continent offers a career. He might
have been prime minister; several strangers have been; and as for war,
look at Brown and Laudohn, and half a hundred others. I had a much better
chance of being a field-marshal than he has of being a Lord Chancellor.'
'I feel quite convinced that Coningsby will be Lord Chancellor,' said
Henry Sydney, gravely.
This change of life for Coningsby was a great social revolution. It was
sudden and complete. Within a month after the death of his grandfather his
name had been erased from all his fashionable clubs, and his horses and
carriages sold, and he had become a student of the Temple. He entirely
devoted himself to his new pursuit. His being was completely absorbed in
it. There was nothing to haunt his mind; no unexperienced scene or
sensation of life to distract his intelligence. One sacred thought alone
indeed there remained, shrined in the innermost sanctuary of his heart and
consciousness. But it was a tradition, no longer a hope. The moment that
he had fairly recovered from the first shock of his grandfather's will;
had clearly ascertained the consequences to himself, and had resolved on
the course to pursue; he had communicated unreservedly with Oswald
Millbank, and had renounced those pretensions to the hand of his sister
which it ill became the destitute to prefer.
His letter was answered in person. Millbank met Henry Sydney and Buckhurst
at the chambers of Coningsby. Once more they were all four together; but
under what different circumstances, and with what different prospects from
those which attended their separation at Eton! Alone with Coningsby,
Millbank spoke to him things which letters could not convey. He bore to
him all the sympathy and devotion of Edith; but they would not conceal
from themselves that, at this moment, and in the present state of affairs,
all was hopeless. In no way did Coningsby ever permit himself to intimate
to Oswald the cause of his disinheritance. He was, of course, silent on it
to his other friends; as any communication of the kind must have touched
on a subject that was consecrated in his inmost soul.
CHAPTER VI.
The state of political parties in England in the spring of 1841 offered a
most remarkable contrast to their condition at the period commemorated in
the first chapter of this work. The banners of the Conservative camp at
this moment lowered on the Whig forces, as the gathering host of the
Norman invader frowned on the coast of Sussex. The Whigs were not yet
conquered, but they were doomed; and they themselves knew it. The mistake
which was made by the Conservative leaders in not retaining office in
1839; and, whether we consider their conduct in a national and
constitutional light, or as a mere question of political tactics and party
prudence, it was unquestionably a great mistake; had infused into the
corps of Whig authority a kind of galvanic action, which only the
superficial could mistake for vitality. Even to form a basis for their
future operations, after the conjuncture of '39, the Whigs were obliged to
make a fresh inroad on the revenue, the daily increasing debility of which
was now arresting attention and exciting public alarm. It was clear that
the catastrophe of the government would be financial.
Under all the circumstances of the case, the conduct of the Whig Cabinet,
in their final propositions, cannot be described as deficient either in
boldness or prudence. The policy which they recommended was in itself a
sagacious and spirited policy; but they erred in supposing that, at the
period it was brought forward, any measure promoted by the Whigs could
have obtained general favour in the country. The Whigs were known to be
feeble; they were looked upon as tricksters. The country knew they were
opposed by a powerful party; and though there certainly never was any
authority for the belief, the country did believe that that powerful party
were influenced by great principles; had in their view a definite and
national policy; and would secure to England, instead of a feeble
administration and fluctuating opinions, energy and a creed.
The future effect of the Whig propositions of '41 will not be detrimental
to that party, even if in the interval they be appropriated piecemeal, as
will probably be the case, by their Conservative successors. But for the
moment, and in the plight in which the Whig party found themselves, it was
impossible to have devised measures more conducive to their precipitate
fall. Great interests were menaced by a weak government. The consequence
was inevitable. Tadpole and Taper saw it in a moment. They snuffed the
factious air, and felt the coming storm. Notwithstanding the extreme
congeniality of these worthies, there was a little latent jealousy between
them. Tadpole worshipped Registration: Taper, adored a Cry. Tadpole always
maintained that it was the winnowing of the electoral lists that could
alone gain the day; Taper, on the contrary, faithful to ancient
traditions, was ever of opinion that the game must ultimately be won by
popular clamour. It always seemed so impossible that the Conservative
party could ever be popular; the extreme graciousness and personal
popularity of the leaders not being sufficiently apparent to be esteemed
an adequate set-off against the inveterate odium that attached to their
opinions; that the Tadpole philosophy was the favoured tenet in high
places; and Taper had had his knuckles well rapped more than once for
manoeuvring too actively against the New Poor-law, and for hiring several
link-boys to bawl a much-wronged lady's name in the Park when the Court
prorogued Parliament.
And now, after all, in 1841, it seemed that Taper was right. There was a
great clamour in every quarter, and the clamour was against the Whigs and
in favour of Conservative principles. What Canadian timber-merchants meant
by Conservative principles, it is not difficult to conjecture; or West
Indian planters. It was tolerably clear on the hustings what squires and
farmers, and their followers, meant by Conservative principles. What they
mean by Conservative principles now is another question: and whether
Conservative principles mean something higher than a perpetuation of
fiscal arrangements, some of them impolitic, none of them important. But
no matter what different bodies of men understood by the cry in which they
all joined, the Cry existed. Taper beat Tadpole; and the great
Conservative party beat the shattered and exhausted Whigs.
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