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 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
 
 PRINTED BV r.ALI.ANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 A SERIES OF READINGS 
 
 AND DISCOURSE 
 
 THEREON. 
 
 Seconti Scries. 
 
 IN TWO VOL UME S. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE, 
 
 1877.
 
 4-779 
 
 AV9f 
 
 1 £377 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 YAr,K 
 
 Address to the Reader v 
 
 Introduction J 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Worry 13 
 
 II. War 56 
 
 III. A Love Story 133 
 
 IV. Criticism H3 
 
 V. Biography 169 
 
 VI. Proverbs 186 
 
 VII. Proverbs 193 
 
 VIII. On the Arts of Self-Advancement . . 199 

 
 ADDRESS TO THE READER. 
 
 I think it is desirable for the reader of this work to 
 know that the Essay on War was written some time 
 ago, when the peace of Europe had not been dis- 
 turbed. That Essay was directed chiefly against the 
 growing practice of maintaining large standing armies 
 in times of peace, which was then a constant cause of 
 apprehensiveness to those who thought at all upon 
 the subject. Their fears have been but too well 
 justified by the result. It must not, however, be 
 imagined that the " friends " who took part in that 
 discussion upon war, would be blind to the dangers 
 of their country, when war had once begun between 
 two great European powers; or that they would 
 counsel remissness in a judicious preparation for the 
 
 . °l
 
 vi FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 contingency of war. I venture to use the word 
 "judicious," because, if much judgment is not used, 
 a large part of the expenditure will infallibly be 
 wasted. That, however, is a question for men versed 
 in the science of war. What I have to bring before 
 the reader is the point of view from which the 
 " Friends in Council " had to consider the question 
 of war, and to recall to his mind a time, not so far 
 back, when our alliances were supposed to be firm, 
 faithful, and confiding, and when it was not imagined 
 that any disturbance was likely to arise in Europe, 
 which diplomacy could not easily compose. 
 
 On the termination of the present war the main- 
 tenance of large standing armies in times of peace 
 will again become the great question for the world. 
 These standing armies add somewhat to the cares 
 and burdens of every grown-up person throughout 
 Europe. Quite putting aside all moral considerations 
 (indeed Christianity has long been out of the question, 
 and Te Deums are sung where Misereres would be far 
 more appropriate), mere household prudence should 
 make it one of the first cares of all good citizens to 
 diminish these monstrous armies. If mankind were
 
 ADDRESS TO THE READER. vii 
 
 really much advanced in civilization, there would be 
 a federation amongst the sensible and influential 
 people of all nations to prevent monarchs from being 
 entrusted with these large means for molesting the 
 human race. 
 
 Individually, we are much in advance of the inha- 
 bitants of those barbarous nations, where slaughter 
 is the only claim to renown. The savage Indian had 
 no other way to power or to any success in life, but 
 in procuring the death of his enemies. Hung round 
 with scalps, he sought the rewarding smile and sure 
 caress of his beloved, and by the same joyous trophies 
 he gained the acclamation of the people over whom 
 he desired to have sway. We have advanced a little 
 beyond that ; but it remains for the European people 
 to prevent their monarchs from seeking distinction in 
 this barbarous method, and becoming great according 
 to the numbers they might proudly show of enemies' 
 scalps taken in battle. 
 
 There is no longer any occasion for us Europeans 
 to prove our prowess. If we take the five great Powers 
 of Europe — Austrians, British, French, Prussians, and 
 Russians — each of these nations has shown in a
 
 viii PR1ENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 hundred fights that they are as brave as men need 
 be. They might really repose upon their laurels j 
 and, as the greatest part of them live comparatively 
 in a squalid state, they might turn their attention to 
 those improvements in the arts of life which are so 
 much wanted in every European nation. 
 
 Among the people especially to be pitied, if a 
 general war should arise, the British labourer and the 
 Russian peasant might claim a high place. Making 
 but small account of glory ; not prone in the first 
 instance to war, though splendidly tenacious * in 
 battle when it does come ; with the greatest hopes 
 before them of large improvement in their condition 
 — for the British labourer, increasing attention given 
 to his welfare at home, and new opportunities of 
 emigration ; for the Russian, a prospect of freedom, 
 and then the peaceful conquest of his own wide 
 lands ; — they are of all men those who should be 
 most reluctantly condemned to warfare. 
 
 * Frederick the Great, after thoroughly beating the Russian 
 army on some occasion, could not get it off the field, because 
 it would remain there ; and it was impossible in the time to 
 slay so many human beings.
 
 ADDRESS TO THE READER. ix 
 
 Our statesmen are, I believe, thoroughly anxious to 
 save their countrymen from this calamity. It is vain, 
 I fear, to hope that the words of any private man will 
 ever reach the Autocrat of All the Russias. But if 
 he could know how many persons in this country — 
 persons whose good opinion no man would be above 
 desiring — have watched his career since he came to the 
 throne and sympathized with him in his untiring efforts 
 to abolish serfdom, he might perhaps feel a sorrow 
 like their sorrow, if forced to divert his mind from 
 such beneficent enterprises to the commonplace 
 despotic amusement of war. 
 
 Lord Stanley, speaking of the present war, said 
 justly, " It will be a war wantonly, needlessly, and, 
 I will say, wickedly made. It will be a war dictated 
 by the ambition of a few men placed in too high a 
 position above the masses of mankind to feel that 
 respect for human rights or that sympathy for human 
 suffering, a due regard for which forms the bonds 
 by which the human race is banded together." * No 
 success in arms should make us forget the truth 
 
 * Address to the Electors of King's Lynn.
 
 x FRIENDS Z.V COUNCIL. 
 
 contained in these words. There is still some force 
 in public opinion as it exists throughout Europe ; 
 and, when the fitting time comes, a steady protest 
 may yet be made against the inhumanity of those 
 who force on difficult questions to the sole arbitra- 
 ment of war, and especially against those who per- 
 petuate the system of warfare by the maintenance of 
 excessive standing armies. 
 
 I make no apology for the length of this address 
 to the reader. These thoughts about war are, I 
 believe, in most men's minds ; and, if not, they 
 ought to be. When Europe is exposed to the risk 
 of relapsing into large and continued warfare, and 
 when our thoughts are greatly given to the problem 
 of how the most men can be killed in the shortest 
 possible time (a problem, by the way, which the 
 British with their singular mechanical skill will be 
 the first to solve when they give their attention to 
 it), no person, however obscure, should omit the 
 opportunity of doing what he can to restrain the 
 waste of blood, of treasure, and of thought, which is 
 imminent for the present generation. 
 
 It was with this view that the essay in question
 
 ADDRESS TO THE READER. xi 
 
 was originally written ; but then an immediate war 
 was scarcely in any man's contemplation, and the 
 question was, as the question will be again, of the 
 hazard and injury to mankind arising from the main- 
 tenance of excessive armies in times of peace. 
 
 London, July "Jth, 1859. 
 
 P.S. — At this Harlequin period of the world, what 
 is written on public affairs in any one week may be, 
 or at least may seem, obsolete and inapplicable in 
 the course of the next. The peace, distantly looked 
 forward to in the foregoing Address, has come. The 
 chief difficulty, however, contemplated in that Address 
 still remains for solution. 
 
 July 15///, 1859.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 AN exquisite thing is good conversation. It winds 
 round and round the subject. It has such 
 charming pauses and interruptions : it is not merely 
 like real life ; it is real life. I think, too, it is not 
 only very beautiful but very useful. I believe that if 
 a man were to look back upon some of the most 
 important resolves that he has taken in the course of 
 his life, he would find that they have been greatly 
 influenced by what he has heard in a chance way in 
 good conversation. I often pity the lower animals 
 for their want of talk. To be sure there is the lowing 
 of kine ; there are the songs of birds, which Milver- 
 ton, who hates their noise, always calls twittering; 
 there is the grand roar of wild beasts in deep 
 forests ; and there are the queer whistlings, shriek- 
 ings, hootings and other unaccountable noises of the 
 lower animals, which for my part I like to hear, 
 
 VOL. I. fand Series.] A
 
 2 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 because I am sure they convey some meaning, and 
 are well understood by kindred creatures. I dare 
 say that love, hatred, joyousness, and terror, are well 
 enough expressed by these sounds. But where are 
 the quips, the cranks, the bright jests, the pompous 
 periods, the sly rejoinders, the hard conclusions of 
 inexorable logic, which belong to good human talk ? 
 If there is an Ellesmere in the lower creation — 
 some strange outlandish bird it may be — how does 
 it manage to express its sensations ? Imagine a 
 humorous animal (and sometimes I fancy, from the 
 look of their eyes and the curling of their noses, that 
 there are such creatures) : how puzzled it must be to 
 find a vehicle for its humour. 
 
 " Sir, we had good talk." What a keen sense of 
 enjoyment is expressed in those few words of Dr. 
 Johnson's. And a modern American philosopher has 
 said, not without some reason, that all the means 
 and appliances of civilisation culminate in bringing 
 together, round a table, in a warm, comfortable room, 
 three or four intelligent people to talk pleasantly. 
 
 All other forms of composition are, comparatively 
 speaking, elaborate works of art. When I read or 
 listen to speeches, sermons, essays, novels, epics, 
 sonnets, — especially sonnets — I seem to be walking 
 in the trim gardens of our ancestors ; but when I
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 listen to good talk, it is like surveying the natural 
 landscape, which does not, at first sight, convey a 
 distinct meaning and purpose ; hut gradually a result 
 appears in some influence or other upon one's mind ; 
 and that result comes sweetly, softly, and undeniably. 
 In thus extolling conversation I magnify my office 
 as a reporter of conversations, but if one did not 
 magnify one's office, one would be a miserable person ; 
 and surely any reporter at the Bar, or in the Senate, 
 must feel almost as if he made (sometimes he does 
 make a good part of them) the brilliant speeches he 
 reports. 
 
 We " Friends in Council " are of course somewhat 
 older men than when we first began to meet in 
 friendly conclave ; and I have observed as men go 
 on in life they are less and less inclined to be 
 didactic. They have found out that nothing is, 
 didactically speaking, true. They long for excep- 
 tions, modifications, allowances. A boy is clear 
 sharp, decisive in his talk. He would have this. 
 He would do that. He hates this ; he loves that : 
 and his loves or his hatreds admit of no exception, 
 He is sure that the one thing is quite right, and 
 the other quite wrong. He is not troubled with 
 doubts. He knows.
 
 4 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 I see now why, as men go on in life, they delight 
 in anecdotes. These tell so much, and argue, or 
 pronounce directly, so little. 
 
 The friendship of Milverton and Ellesmere is not 
 altered. Indeed the friendship of such men seldom 
 does alter. To me, too, they are just the same, 
 showing as much respect, and sometimes (as in 
 Ellesmere's case) as little, as they used to do in the 
 conversations I have formerly reported. Mildred 
 and Blanche, two cousins of Milverton's, have now 
 grown up into young women, and occasionally take 
 some part in our conversations, as much as women 
 generally do in conversation. We shall also have 
 another interlocutor, Mr. Midhurst, an older man 
 than Milverton or Ellesmere, of whom I would rather 
 say nothing; at least as regards his character, for I 
 do not understand it. 
 
 In person Mr. Midhurst resembles a portrait there 
 is of the great Lord Clarendon by Sir Peter Lely. 
 He has the same burly, dignified figure, and the same 
 acute, thoughtful countenance. The moment I saw 
 .Mr. Midhurst, I was reminded of this picture; and 
 the likeness would be complete, but that Mr. Mid- 
 hurst has a far more melancholy look than Charles's 
 Chancellor, and has that form of lip which is said
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 to indicate an exceeding appreciation of the good 
 things of this life. 
 
 The time and place of our conversations have 
 varied, as the reader will see, very much. I cannot 
 pretend to give those times and places very accurately, 
 or to assert that they will come in any regular order. 
 Occasionally, the choicest companions are somewhat 
 dull, especially when they are happy and at ease in 
 each other's society; and I only undertake to report 
 those conversations which seem to me interesting. I 
 am not the Boswell to these younger men, my pupils 
 (for as such I still regard them), and I cannot under- 
 take to record every trivial word that they have 
 uttered, or trivial tiling that they have done. I 
 cannot speculate about my Dr. Johnsons, as Boswell 
 did about his, when he noticed, and gravely put 
 down as a thing that had perplexed him, the fact 
 that his great man was in the habit of putting aside 
 bits of orange-peel. 
 
 I will not linger more in giving preparatory expla- 
 nations, but simply describe how it was that we came 
 to go abroad, and that most of the conversations 
 about to be recorded took place at different towns on 
 the Continent. 
 
 We were sauntering about Milverton's garden, and 
 were all of us in a very tired and stupid state of
 
 6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 mind. I had not been away from my parish duties 
 for two years. Ellesmere had gone through a laborious 
 session, and Milverton was over-worked and over- 
 fatigued, though ready, as usual, to discuss any 
 question that might come before him. Still, there 
 was an absence of life and animation even in him, 
 and he was discoursing at the moment about the 
 number of failures that there are in life, amongst 
 public men, for instance ; and how the most signal 
 downfalls and disasters often come on at a time of 
 life when they are utterly irreparable; "and," he 
 added : — " I should like to write a book all full of 
 consolation, so that when men were more vexed and 
 unhappy than usual, they should turn to the thoughts 
 of Leonard Milverton to see whether any small com- 
 fort could be got out of them. I say small comfort, 
 because the great sources of comfort would have to 
 be looked for in books of higher purpose, but mine 
 should only aim at minor consolations." I interrupted 
 him as follows : — 
 
 Dunsford. One of the most remarkable attempts at 
 consolation that I know is in a letter from Queen Eliza- 
 beth to some Earl and Countess who had just lost a son. 
 I do not remember the words, and I cannot think where 
 I saw the letter (I believe you pointed it out to me, 
 Milverton), but the course of the argument was this : —
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 In time you will be comforted. Why should not present 
 reasoning about a calamity do as much for you as the 
 lapse of time ? 
 
 Ellesmere. Very amiable of Elizabeth and well- 
 intended, no doubt, but charmingly pedantic : just like 
 her father, one of the most striking characteristics of 
 whose character w-as, I believe, pedantry. By lapse of 
 time, of course she meant distraction of attention by 
 other circumstances happening in time ; and, as I have 
 been telling Milverton, change is the arch-consoler, and 
 that is why, as we are all rather tired, I vote we go 
 abroad. ; 
 
 Milverton. I do not see why change of place is neces- 
 sary. Would not change of pursuit do ? In general we 
 go about here in our walks without sufficiently changing 
 our ideas. If we were to look at Nature more closely, 
 it would be change enough. I have a theory that every 
 plant we see is of some great and peculiar utility, and we 
 have not yet perhaps mastered a hundredth part of the 
 use of plants. Then, if we were to think of the wonders 
 of growth and assimilation, — why it is, that when you 
 put in here a seed, you have a plant which employs 
 itself in secreting poison, and when you put in another 
 seed close to it, you have a plant which concocts human 
 nutriment, and both of them producing these different 
 results always in exactly the same proportions — what a 
 question lies before us, and something so entirely different 
 from our usual cogitations. 
 
 Ellesmere. Very interesting, not in the least recrea- 
 tive ! You have cultivated many things, my dear fellow, 
 but a judicious cultivation of listlessness has been entirely
 
 8 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 omitted by you. In travel, thoughts and ideas come to 
 you. You do not fatigue yourself by rushing out to find 
 them. 
 
 Milverton. There is a great deal of annoyance always 
 in travelling. 
 
 Ellesmere. Granted. But the annoyances are some- 
 what different from those at home, and change is what 
 we want. 
 
 Milverton. Then, there are the ladies. There are not 
 many parts of Europe, to my mind, quite fit for English 
 ladies. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, we will keep to the most civilised 
 places, to the most beaten tracks ; I have never, as yet, 
 half seen any foreign town that I have seen. 
 
 Milverton. Besides we shall have so many pictures 
 and works of art to see. I am tired of seeing pictures. 
 I have such a number of them in my own mind as yet 
 unpainted, and I am content with these. By the way, 
 did I ever tell you that before I went to Venice, I said 
 jokingly (dreading the pictures I should have to see) 
 that I would only look at six and a half, and that Mr. 
 Ruskin should direct me if he liked ? To my astonish- 
 ment and pleasure I found a letter from Mr. Ruskin at 
 Venice, directing me which six and a half I was to see. 
 I had already, however, been lugged through several 
 galleries. Thenceforward I kept to the six and a half. 
 His choice seemed to me admirable, especially the half 
 picture, which I went three times to see. 
 
 Ellestnere. An extraordinary event for you. But what 
 do you mean by a half picture ? 
 
 Milverton. Oh ! one-half was not worth looking at,
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 and the other was transcendently beautiful. Mr. Ruskin 
 kept to his agreement, and did not delude me into seeing 
 seven pictures instead of six and a half. 
 
 Dunsford. You were saying that you had a great 
 number of unpainted pictures always in your mind? 
 
 Milverton. Should you like to have any of them ? 
 It is curious, but I have been painting two companion 
 pictures ever since we have been walking about in the 
 garden. One consists of some dilapidated garden archi- 
 tecture, with overgrown foliage of all kinds, not forest 
 foliage, but that of rare trees such as the Sumach and 
 Japan-Cedar, which should have been neglected for thirty- 
 years. Here and there, instead of the exquisite parterre, 
 there should be some miserable patches of potatoes and 
 beans, and some squalid clothes hung out to dry. Two 
 ill-dressed children, but of delicate features, should be 
 playing about an ugly neglected pool that had once been 
 the basin to the fountain. But the foliage should be the 
 chief thing, gaunt, grotesque, rare, beautiful, like an 
 unkempt, uncared-for, lovely mountain girl. Underneath 
 this picture : — ' Property in the country, in chancery.' 
 
 The companion picture, of course, should be : — ' Pro- 
 perty in town, in chancery.' It should consist of two 
 or three hideous, sordid, window-broken, rat-deserted, 
 paintless, blackened houses, that should look as if they 
 had once been too good company for the neighbour- 
 hood, and had met with a fall in life, not deplored by 
 any one. At the opposite corner should be a flaunting 
 new gin-palace. I do not know whether I should have 
 the heart to bring any children there, but I would if I 
 could.
 
 io FKIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Ellesmcre. Well, your pictures are delightful, cer- 
 tainly, and possess all that serene cheerfulness which is 
 the highest product of Art ; at least they would do so if 
 there was a thriving lawyer's house in the background. 
 But seriously, Milverton, we will not ask you to see a 
 single picture ; and if you will come with us and bring 
 Miss Mildred and Miss Blanche, I will go with you and 
 see seven of the chief sewers in seven of the chief towns, 
 and if that is not an inducement to offer to a sanitarian, 
 I do not know what is. Is it a bargain ? Do not think 
 to increase the high terms I offer by any chaffering. My 
 terms are Sibylline. Is it a bargain ? 
 
 Milverton. It is. 
 
 I may as well explain more fully here who Mildred 
 Vernon and Blanche Vernon are — the two young 
 ladies who accompanied us on this tour. They are 
 wards of mine, as well as cousins of Milverton's. 
 Since the marriage of my niece, Lucy Daylmer, they 
 have occasionally lived with me, and have sometimes 
 been on a visit to their cousin, but their home has 
 chiefly been with their other guardian in London. 
 They are orphans. They are both very intelligent girls, 
 but intelligent in different ways. Mildred resembles 
 her cousin Milverton. She is very well read, indeed 
 has been quite studious for a girl, and is an alert, 
 enthusiastic person, caring much about what goes on 
 in the world. Blanche, on the contrary, cares only
 
 INTRODUCTION. n 
 
 for what is near to her, and is a household sort of 
 person. When she was younger, and I occasionally 
 directed her education, she would learn dutifully 
 anything that I gave her to learn : but it excited no 
 curiosity in her, and she did not care to follow it up. 
 She said her lesson to please me, and there was an 
 end of it. Mildred, on the other hand, was absolutely 
 tiresome to teach, because she would know all about 
 what she was learning, tormenting me with sharp 
 questions, and demanding to have everything explained 
 to her satisfaction. They are both beautiful ; at least 
 I think so; and their beauty corresponds to their 
 characters. There is a touch of imperiousness in 
 Mildred's blue eyes, somewhat added to by her dark 
 eyebrows and eyelashes, — an unusual combination. 
 She has that form of beauty which is often to be seen 
 in all classes at Limerick, and which they are said to 
 derive from Spanish ancestry. In Blanche's coun- 
 tenance all is smooth and rounded, gracious and 
 impressible. It is a trite remark to make, but really 
 Nature does seem to amuse herself sometimes in 
 making members of the same family so widely diverse 
 that they seem to be representatives of different races. 
 And yet, on closer knowledge, you almost always find 
 the family relationship strictly maintained in some 
 points, either of voice, handwriting, gesture, or tern-
 
 12 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 perament — in likings or dislikings. This too, occurs 
 in cases where the children have been educated widely 
 apart, and have not seen one another for years together. 
 Two brothers, brought up in different hemispheres, 
 will yet write exactly alike, and the gesture of one as 
 he walks down the street, perhaps with his back to 
 you, and almost a stranger, will immediately remind 
 you of the other, whom you have known from child- 
 hood. Ah what a beautiful thing is relationship, 
 beautiful in its likenesses and in its diversities ; but we 
 men do not make of it what we might. That direful 
 familiarity, which few people know how to guide and 
 govern, prevents or disfigures so much affection. Still, 
 relationship remains one of the most delightful things 
 in the world. But I must not go on moralising, and 
 must keep such thoughts for my sermons, when my 
 hearers are obliged to listen to me ; whereas, if I go 
 on now in this strain, my readers may very judiciously 
 put down the book. Besides, I am hindering them, 
 as I said before, from better things.
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 WORRY. 
 
 " r I ^HEY may say what they like against the 
 -A- Rhine ; that it is vulgarised, that it is cockney- 
 fled ; that it is not so grand as the Danube or the 
 Rhone ; but, take it altogether, it is the most charm- 
 ing river in Europe to my mind. I do not wonder 
 at the passionate affection which our friends the Ger- 
 mans have for it. There are five or six great cities 
 which I love very much : Milan, Venice, Genoa, 
 Cadiz, Edinburgh (when it is very warm), and Dublin ; 
 but I do not know that I ever have more pleasure 
 than in pottering about these small towns on the 
 Rhine, as we are now doing. Of course it is an 
 additional pleasure to me that there are no picture- 
 galleries or works of art to be seen." 
 
 Thus it was that Milverton began a conversation 
 one day, after an early German dinner, when we had 
 sauntered out upon the terrace of some small town on
 
 14 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 the Rhine. I forget whether it was Andernach, or 
 Boppart, or some town on the opposite side of the 
 river. Milverton, Ellesmere, and Mr. Midhurst were 
 smoking; "more usefully employed," as Ellesmere 
 said, than Blanche or Mildred, who were working at 
 little bits of embroidery; " more harmlessly employed," 
 so he was pleased to say, than Dunsford, as he was 
 sure that I was meditating an increase to my stock of 
 sermons, and that I was just working in a simile 
 "quite new," about the resemblance of the flow of a 
 river to the course of human life. Milverton took up 
 the question of smoking, and the conversation pro- 
 ceeded thus : — 
 
 Milverton. Ah, what a blessing this smoking is ! per- 
 haps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America ; 
 and what a pity it is that so good a thing should be so 
 much abused ! You see a young man consuming immense 
 quantities of this potent herb at a time of life when it 
 is peculiarly injurious ; when he needs activity rather 
 than calmness ; and before he has laid in that stock of 
 vexations which are sometimes so judiciously and so 
 wisely regarded amidst the fragrant wreaths of this bene- 
 ficent weed. Instead of beginning at fourteen, thirty-five 
 would be a much better age to commence smoking. 
 
 Ellesmere. With what fierce indignation a company of 
 young gentlemen would receive this .sentiment of our 
 philosophic friend !
 
 WORRY. 15 
 
 Milverton. I suspect it is sound doctrine, nevertheless, 
 though the young gentlemen might not like it. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, Milverton, but are you sure that the 
 troubles of life go on increasing? Do not the young feel 
 what troubles they have with an acuteness unknown to 
 us ? If these pretty pieces of embroidery were to be 
 spoilt now, or the boxes of rubbish which these girls are 
 accumulating as presents to their friends, were to fall 
 overboard from the steamer into the Rhine, would not the 
 anguish of Miss Mildred and Miss Blanche considerably 
 exceed yours and mine when a Bill is lost in Parliament, 
 which you and I care about, or when some piece of property 
 goes wrong, or when we find our seeming friends become 
 our enemies, while amidst gloom, sickness, and disap- 
 pointment we discern our powers of protecting ourselves 
 gradually decaying ? For my part, instead of limiting 
 smoking, I think I would extend it to women, and per- 
 haps even to the so-called "inferior" animals. How 
 noble our bull-dog Fixer would look with a pipe in his 
 mouth. But give some answer, Milverton, to my ques- 
 tion about the troubles of girls and boys. Are they not 
 most acute ? 
 
 Milverton. Yes, they are very acute ; but they are 
 simple in their nature. They are not large, varied, per- 
 plexed, and cumbered with all the bewildered feelings of 
 nice responsibility. These are the troubles for which 
 there is occasionally great virtue in smoke. The best 
 thing I ever read about smoking was by an anonymous 
 author in Blackwood, who said, if I recollect the sub- 
 stance of his remarks, that it seemed to arrest Time for 
 you, and to give you a keen sensation of the present.
 
 1 6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Now Mr. Lewes has shown, in his admirable essay on 
 "Suicide,"* that it is a mistake as to time which has 
 probably led to many a suicide. The imagination of the 
 tormented man presents to him long lines of evil occur- 
 rences marching in upon him at the same time. Prac- 
 
 * I subjoin an extract from this remarkable paper, which has 
 pleased me much, and I dare say will please others as much : — 
 
 "This trite experience of the instability of human happiness 
 lias an obverse aspect which should give consolation in moments 
 of affliction. The same uncertainty which attends our fore- 
 castings of success and happiness, equally attends our forecastings 
 of failure and misery. The radiance is not more liable to be 
 overclouded than the darkness is to be irradiated. We cannot 
 foresee truly ; we can only imagine something that may occur ; 
 and these imaginations are always wrong, if not as to the event 
 itself, yet as to the degree in which the event will affect us. Let 
 the worst he foresees arrive, it will reach the victim as something 
 very different from what he imagined. The crash arrives ; nothing 
 could — nothing did avert it ; it is here, and he is a beggar. His 
 wife and children are beggars. Nay, worse than all, he is dis- 
 graced : deeds come to light which cause him to blush deeply 
 when revealed, although he blushed but slightly, perhaps, in doing 
 them. Everything, then, that he dreaded has arrived ? True: 
 but not as he feared it. Now he is face to face with it, the terror 
 vanishes. His strength is greater, and his sorrow less. Bank- 
 ruptcy, if painful, is found to be endurable. Poverty turns out 
 a comparatively slight evil — considerably less than a toothache. 
 Even the shame against which sensitive pride revolted is not so 
 terrible as imagination pictured it ; although, being an intellectual 
 pain, and indefinite in its nature, imagination continues to exer- 
 cise a control over it. Men do not look their scorn at him as he 
 passes. His wife and children do not shrink from him, but 
 cling with closer fondness, consoling him for the neglect of 
 others. The dog licks his hand as before. The tradesman is as 
 cap-in-hand for custom. The heart still beats, and Heaven is
 
 WORRY. 17 
 
 tically, Mr. Lewes maintains, they do not come in this 
 way. Evil, as well as good, is unpunctual, and often fails 
 in keeping its appointments. But I will read the whole 
 essay to you when we get back to Worth-Ashton, and are 
 once more amidst my dear swine and beloved oxen. 
 You apprehend, however, the gist of the argument. While 
 smoking, you cease for the moment to live wholly in the 
 future, which miserable men do for the most part, to the 
 great increase of their misery. 
 
 Ellesmere. Then, after all, disappointed affection is 
 not so great a misfortune as it has been accounted. It 
 does not need a cigar, according to our philosopher. 
 This is a comfort, Mr. Midhurst, for you and me. 
 Mr. Midhurst was telling me this morning that he had 
 never tasted a canvas-back duck, — at least, in good pre- 
 servation : and he inoculated me with his sorrow and his 
 disappointment to that degree, that we have both been 
 very melancholy ever since ; but these disappointed affec- 
 tions are not to be soothed by light and trivial things like 
 a cigar. 
 
 It amuses me to see that Milverton makes so light of 
 the miseries of affection, while he is so tender about the 
 
 above all In this simple fact, that we cannot accu- 
 rately foresee the future, lies a refuge from despair. 
 
 ' The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase — 
 " Let no one be called happy till his death," 
 To which I add — " Let no one till his death 
 Be called unhappy." ' {Aurora Leigh.)" 
 
 — " Suicide in Life and Literature," Westminster Review, July, 
 
 1857- 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] B
 
 iS FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 woes and worries of middle-aged men of business. Com- 
 mend me to a philosopher for taking a thoroughly one- 
 sided view of any question. 
 
 Milverton. Ah, you do not estimate, or you pretend 
 not to estimate, the cares and troubles of the middle- 
 aged ; whereas I must confess that, even in a novel, I 
 often feel more for the mother, who is but a lay figure, 
 than for the daughter, who, though she goes through sore 
 troubles 
 
 Ellesmere. Requiring many cigars in the course of the 
 first, second, and the first half of the third volumes 
 
 Milverton. Is yet eventually to blaze out into a suc- 
 cessful marriage, while the poor mother 
 
 Elles7>iere. Is to become a mere mother-in-law. 
 
 But stop, Milverton ; if you are so hard-hearted as not 
 to admit the full misery of disappointed affection, at least 
 you will allow that there is one cause of suffering pertain- 
 ing to the young which is immensely potent in its nature. 
 I mean false shame, a misery which you really seem to 
 have forgotten. 
 
 When a young man, or young woman, does or says 
 something in society which is either ill-timed, ill-advised, 
 indiscreet, or simply ridiculous, there is scarcely any 
 estimate which can be made sufficiently great to represent 
 the suffering which the unhappy blunderer will contrive 
 to get out of this small social m-isadventure. 
 
 I am a hardened lawyer now. Blushing is not my 
 forte ; but I could blush all over, if I chose to recall 
 minutely a little misery of that kind which I brought upon 
 myself some eighteen years ago, from saying, in the inno- 
 cence and guilelessness of my heart, some particularly
 
 WORRY. 19 
 
 indiscreet thing, which for a few minutes startled a whole 
 company into silence. 
 
 You talk of smoking not being necessary for the 
 untroubled natures of the young, but if smoking could 
 have done any good to me in that case (which I don't 
 think it could), I would have smoked a barrel of cigars, 
 and should have been content to have been made very 
 ill, in order to have escaped the oppressing recollection 
 of my folly. 
 
 Miss Vernon and Miss Blanche know very well — whether 
 they choose to confess it is another thing — that if they 
 have entered a drawing-room with their gowns not quite 
 settled, or any little matter of dress awry about them, 
 they go home thoroughly miserable, cry for some hours 
 before they get to sleep, and believe for a week after- 
 wards that the whole company did nothing else but 
 observe the ill-settled dress, or the awry flimsiness — 
 whatever it was — and that the chief talk of the room was 
 about them. 
 
 In the supreme art of self-tormenting there is nothing 
 like the vigorous imagination of a very young person who 
 thinks that he or she has made himself or herself unplea- 
 santly remarkable in good society. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I declare Sir John has made quite an 
 eloquent speech upon false shame, or rather upon exag- 
 gerated shame, and all he has said is very true — indeed 
 when he tells us how he could blush now at the mere 
 recollection of this long past indiscretion, it gives us a 
 fearful notion of the burning power of shame. 
 
 Milverton. I admit it was an oversight of mine not to 
 have taken into account the sufferings of the young from
 
 20 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 false shame, and I stand corrected, but am still not dis- 
 posed to vary the result of my conclusions about the 
 relative sufferings of youth and middle-age. 
 
 Ellesmere. I make a proposition to this worshipful 
 company — that Milverton be entreated to write an essay 
 upon Worry. His having said that he would write no 
 more essays is an additional reason for his writing it. I 
 never heard Madame Grisi with more delight than the 
 time immediately after "the very last time" that she was 
 to sing. So, no doubt, it will be with Milverton's first 
 essay after the very last. People will become enamoured 
 of worry, finding it so well written about. 
 
 Milverton (pretending to talk to himself). Let me see: 
 First section, Law in general : second section, Common 
 law : third, Chancery law : fourth, Lawyers in private life : 
 fifth, Lawyers in Parliament. (Aloud.) Yes, I will write an 
 essay on Worry, and read it here to-morrow at this very 
 hour. But you must not expect it to be very searching or 
 extensive. Besides, everything about us here is so calm 
 and pleasant : my companions are so unlike co-commitee 
 men, co-trustees, co-executors, co-vestrymen (excepting 
 of course, Ellesmere, who is the arch-vestryman, who 
 objects to everything proposed by everybody), that I shall 
 find it difficult to bring myself into a thoroughly worried 
 state of mind. 
 
 Ellesmere. Nonsense! Do not all the coxcombs who 
 write about Art say, that serenity is the first requisite ? 
 that a man should have suffered, and not be suffering at 
 the moment when he produces or describes ? Look at 
 Fixer. That dog is exactly in the state of mind for the 
 production of works of Art. For second-rate artists, hov\-
 
 WORRY. 21 
 
 ever, — essayists and the like — whether their minds are 
 serene or clouded, it does not much matter. To-morrow 
 then, I say, to-morrow, looking serenely from this beauti- 
 ful terrace, after watching some great raft go down the 
 river, we will listen to the woes of busy men, and think 
 with joy that we have still six weeks of our holidays left 
 to us. 
 
 On the morrow we came to the terrace, and 
 Milverton read the following essay : — 
 
 THE great characteristic of modern life is 
 Worry. 
 If the Pagan religion still prevailed, the new 
 goddess, in whose honour temples would be raised 
 and to whom statues would be erected in all the 
 capitals of the world, would be the goddess Worry. 
 London would be the chief seat and centre of her 
 sway. A gorgeous statue, painted and enriched after 
 the manner of the ancients (for there is no doubt that 
 they adopted this practice, however barbarous it may 
 seem to us), would be set up to the goddess in the 
 West-end of the town : another at Temple Bar, of 
 less ample dimensions and less elaborate decoration, 
 would receive the devout homage of worshippers who 
 came to attend their lawyers in that quarter of the
 
 22 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 town : while a statue, on which the cunning sculptor 
 should have impressed the marks of haste, anxiety, 
 and agitation, would be sharply glanced up at, with 
 as much veneration as they could afford to give to it, 
 by the eager men of business in the City. 
 
 The goddess Worry, however, would be no local 
 deity, worshipped merely in some great town, like 
 Diana of the Ephesians ; but, in the market-places of 
 small rural communities, her statue, made somewhat 
 like a vane, and shifting with every turn of the wind, 
 would be regarded with stolid awe by anxious votaries 
 belonging to what is called the farming interest. 
 Familiar too and household would be her worship : 
 and in many a snug home, where she might be 
 imagined to have little potency, small and ugly 
 images of her would be found as household gods — 
 the Lares and Penates — near to the threshold and 
 ensconced above the glowing hearth. 
 
 The poet, always somewhat inclined to fable, speaks 
 of Love as ruling 
 
 " The court, the camp, the grove, 
 And men below, and heaven above ; " 
 
 but the dominion of Love, as compared with that of 
 Worry, would be found, in the number of subjects, as 
 the Macedonian to the Persian — in extent of territory, 
 as the county of Rutland to the empire of Russia.
 
 WORRY. 23 
 
 Whence comes the power of this great goddess ? 
 what are the scourges that she wields ? To men of a 
 certain age it is only necessary to mention some dread 
 names which will at once recall to their minds her 
 mighty influence, and make them desirous of pro- 
 pitiating her awful power. Law, repairs, taxation, 
 partnership, executorship, trusteeship, bankruptcy, 
 are some of the names, which, if pronounced before 
 the most innocent and even the most cautious of men, 
 will often act like a spell upon them, bringing a slight 
 shudder through their frames and not a slight gloom 
 over their countenances. If they are blessed with pro- 
 geny, one has only to mention the words education 
 and furtherance of children, to tame them down a 
 little in case their spirits should ever be too bounding. 
 
 Perhaps, however, it is in minor matters that the 
 power of Worry is pre-eminently conspicuous. When 
 Ave think of voting, testimonial-giving, attendance at 
 public dinners, attendance on committees, manage- 
 ment of servants, buying and selling, and, last and 
 greatest, correspondence by letter — a trouble which 
 you mow down each day, and each day see a new crop 
 rising up for the scythe — we can form some slight notion 
 of the power of the great goddess Worry. 
 
 What contrivances there are in modern life for losimr 
 time and adding to worry ! Consider the distances in
 
 24 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 a great capital that have to be traversed upon the 
 most trivial occasions, the various social annoyances 
 that have to be encountered — visits as tiresome to 
 the person visiting as to the person visited — the 
 duties and responsibilities of a witness, a juryman, 
 a creditor, a godfather, a trustee. 
 
 Then there is the worry of pleasure, which is often 
 accompanied by all the difficulty, the tiresomeness, 
 and the monotony of business, without any attendant 
 credit or inward satisfaction of mind. See what a 
 tyrant is fashion ; and how much every one endures 
 in the way of dress in order to disfigure himself as 
 much as the rest of mankind, and to avoid being 
 hooted by little boys in the streets. 
 
 Then consider the worry connected with conjoint 
 action : how, when you are acting with others, you 
 are never certain of being up to time ; and how it 
 requires a long and painful experience of the world 
 before you learn to make allowance for the necessary 
 variation in your calculations which results from 
 other men's backwardness, unpunctuality, and even 
 their reasonable hindrances. There is nothing like 
 certainty in any transaction where you have colleagues. 
 This man, just at the point of time when you relied 
 upon him, is ill ; that man torn by domestic affliction ;
 
 WORRY. 25 
 
 a third indifferent to the project which he had hither- 
 to been sanguine about : a fourth won over to the 
 enemy, while you, assured of his adherence, have 
 been working in other directions and neglecting him. 
 The army is to concentrate upon a certain point at a 
 certain time ; but this marshal has lost his way, and that 
 one has been beaten on the road • and one is stupid, 
 and another is traitorous, and a third Is unlucky ; 
 and at last you find, that to have ensured success, 
 you must yourself have been everywhere at the same 
 time. These things happen too in private life ; for the 
 ordinary affairs of man are not very different from 
 war, diplomacy, and government; and the impartial 
 goddess Worry finds time to attend to private and 
 most obscure persons. 
 
 Indeed it is such persons — commonplace unro- 
 mantic people, who are not likely to cut any figure in 
 history — that are mainly thought of in this essay. 
 Pity is sure to be given, and is justly due, to a 
 Charles the Fifth in his old age, lying sick at 
 Innspriick, the clouds of ill-fortune gathering round 
 him from all quarters, and each post bringing intelli. 
 gence of Duke Maurice's stealthy and treacherous 
 approach : — to the sorry ending of a Columbus, who 
 was to gain so little himself from the discovery of a 
 New World : — to the struggles of a Napoleon during
 
 26 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 his closing campaign, grasping still at great projects 
 which he could not hope to realise, and the stern 
 facts coming daily to him, a master of facts, which 
 contradicted all his hopes : — to many a poet like 
 Dante or Camoens, who has to sing what song he 
 may, amidst the most sordid and miserable accom- 
 paniments of poverty, exile, imprisonment, and debt. 
 But all our pity must not be given to these high-raised 
 examples of men suffering from the great or small 
 miseries of human life; and the ordinary citizen, even 
 of a well-settled state, who, with narrow means, 
 increasing taxation, approaching age, failing health, 
 and augmenting cares, goes plodding about his daily 
 work thickly bestrewed with trouble and worry (all 
 the while, perhaps, the thought of a sick child at 
 home being in the background of his mind), may also, 
 like any hero of renown in the midst of his world-wide 
 and world-attracting fortune, be a beautiful object for 
 our sympathy. The suffering, no doubt, is great of 
 the conquered general, reluctantly hurried by his 
 attendants from the field of battle, who thinks with 
 anguish how differently he would play the game if he 
 had to play it over again. But neither is the suffering 
 light of any one of the peasants whose charred and 
 blackened home the conquerors and the conquered 
 press unheeding over.
 
 WORRY. 27 
 
 To return to the worry incident upon conjoint 
 action : if the matter upon which a man is engaged 
 in conjoint action with others be a great matter, 
 something that may be dignified by the name of " a 
 cause," what an amount of life-long trouble there is 
 to any person sincerely embarking in it! What an 
 immense number of people have to be persuaded, 
 silenced, or tired out, before anything good can be 
 done! How uncertain it is whether such a subject 
 will surge up at the right time ! how the cause 
 becomes encrusted with fools, and bores, and vain 
 men, who hinder its progress far more than the 
 marine creatures that stick to the keels of vessels, 
 hinder theirs ; and thus it is that the men, who of all 
 others should, for the highest interests of mankind, be 
 least obstructed by worry of all sorts, are often those 
 who have to endure, and if they would succeed, to 
 bear down the most of it. That delicate German 
 writer, Jean Paul, says somewhere, when magnifying 
 the office of a learned writer, that kings and princes 
 should sit in dutiful humility upon the bench before 
 him : and so, when a notable man comes into the 
 world, resolutely bent on doing some good in it, and 
 giving fair promise of ability to work, the world could 
 scarcely spend its time better than in defending such 
 a man from all the small cares, hindrances, and
 
 2S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL, 
 
 worries which seem to grow up in greater profusion 
 under his feet than under those of other men, and 
 often make him a victim instead of a defender. 
 
 The especial plague of modern life lies in the 
 perpetual acts of decision which it requires, while 
 at the same time the power of decisiveness is 
 enlightened, encumbered, and often deadened, as the 
 generations of men proceed, by more insight, more 
 forethought, and a constant increase of the sense of 
 nice responsibility. The great Von Humboldt went 
 into the cottages of South American Indians, and, 
 amongst an unwrinkled people, could with difficulty 
 discern who was the father and who was the son, 
 when he saw the family assembled together. These 
 comfortable Indians took misfortune when it came, 
 without regret, without much looking back, without 
 much looking forward ; bearing it with the exemplary 
 patience of a dumb animal. It would, perhaps, be 
 not too much to say, that a man living in a highly- 
 civilised community, makes, at some expense of 
 thought and suffering (if indeed we can dissociate the 
 two things, for steady thought is a kind of suffering) 
 four hundred decisions whilst the savage makes one. 
 
 No sane man is likely to talk now as Rousseau did, 
 and to magnify beyond measure the blessings of a 
 savage life ; but it may be well occasionally to pause
 
 WORRY. 29 
 
 in the midst of counting our gains from civilization, 
 and, looking at the other side, to see in what 
 directions worry invades and torments us most 
 successfully — also to study how she may best be 
 resisted. This last investigation may be resolved 
 into two branches : the art of abridging needless an- 
 noyance and the art of taking things coolly. 
 
 How much might be done, for instance, in studying 
 taxation with reference to the abridgement of needless 
 annoyance; yet how rarely we find that statesmen 
 enter with any heartiness into financial discussions, 
 except with regard to the amounts to be raised — in 
 short, how little they seem to care about the worry 
 endured by the tax-paying subject. 
 
 In physical matters, too, such as the building of 
 houses, how much might be done to avoid worry. 
 Fire insurance is a great field for the influence of our 
 goddess ; yet by a little skill and resolve we might 
 baffle her completely there. 
 
 But, perhaps, the field where she might be encoun- 
 tered with most chance of success would be that of 
 social intercourse amongst men. A late prime minis- 
 ter, who was not in the habit of confiding much, 
 once confessed to a foreign ambassador that social 
 claims weighed heavily upon him as a minister : i.e.,
 
 30 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 that the necessity for being ever before the public 
 which seems to lie upon an English minister was an 
 afflicting burden to him, — as indeed it must be to 
 every man who wishes to do good and lasting work. 
 Now this demand upon a statesman, and others like 
 to it, show a sad want of consideration on the part of 
 the public. All men of eminence in any department 
 suffer greatly from demands upon their time and 
 attention, which may be very natural on the part of 
 the people making them, but at the same time are 
 very unreasonable and substantially unkind • and a 
 wise man who cared for himself alone, if such a man 
 there be, would almost as soon part with obscurity as 
 with life itself, so deadly a thing in a large and civi- 
 lized community is the possession, often wildly coveted, 
 of any kind of notoriety. 
 
 The late Duke of Wellington is reported to have 
 said that he answered every letter addressed to him. 
 I have sometimes thought that that very great man 
 did something to diminish his claim to public gratitude 
 if he ever made such a remark. A great many letters 
 are so intrusive in their nature that they deserve to be 
 neglected. If a man, whose time is valuable, does 
 answer readily to every foolish claim upon his atten- 
 tion, the important things which he could do well and 
 where his energy is most needed, run some chance of
 
 WORRY. 31 
 
 being put aside. And often the neglect of these 
 important things is less visible than any breach or 
 intermission of mere routine work, such as the answer- 
 ing of common letters. The best kind of work often 
 makes least show. 
 
 It were well that some skilful essayist should write 
 a short treatise on the art of taking things coolly. 
 Look at the labour that men give even to their 
 sports, with their game-books, and their skilful appa- 
 ratus, and their fox-covers, and their preserves. That 
 form of pleasure has altogether entered into the domain 
 of tiresome business. And now to moralise upon our- 
 selves. What an elaborate worry we travellers almost 
 always make of travelling ; how resolved we are to see 
 more than can possibly be seen with profit or comfort : 
 how much too large and comprehensive our plans are : 
 how seldom we let ourselves be carried away by any 
 real, present enjoyment: and how we have ever ring- 
 ing in our ears the names of great cities and remark- 
 able mountains, the limits of our journeys, which we 
 are resolved to compass the sight of, let the trouble 
 or worry be ever so great. Then we are resolved to 
 " do," as we say, these towns so thoroughly that we 
 scamper about them like wild animals with something 
 attached to their tails, and at the end we have a
 
 32 FRIENDS JJV COUNCIL. 
 
 jumble in our memory of all the things we have seen ; 
 whereas the profit of a journey is to have a very clear 
 recollection of what you do recollect at all, so that in 
 troubled moments and in the midst of a busy life, 
 sitting by a sea-coal fire and glancing into the " long 
 unlovely London street," some bright and perfect view 
 of Venice, of Genoa, or of Monte Rosa comes back to 
 you, and is as full of repose as a day wisely spent in 
 travel. On a journey, so far from being anxious to 
 exhaust everything at once, and so to mix in your 
 memory the most heterogeneous elements, you should 
 always think that you will come again that way, and 
 take up all the stitches that have fallen through this 
 time. Sincerity and coolness are the two requisites 
 for enjoying a journey : sincerity, to prevent you from 
 worrying yourself by looking at tilings which you do 
 not really care about, and which you will only have to 
 talk about in future (why should you care to talk 
 about them ?), and coolness, that you may have your 
 wits, and your soul, and your powers of observation 
 at liberty to disport themselves. You have mostly 
 come away from business. Why take up a new trade 
 — the irksome trade of travel ? 
 
 But the grand source of worry, compared with 
 which perhaps all others are trivial, lies in the com-
 
 WORRY. 33 
 
 plexity of human affairs, especially in such an era of 
 civilization as our own. I was much surprised to find 
 a complaint of this complexity in an author like 
 Goethe, whom I should have expected to find on the 
 other side. He says : — 
 
 "The natives of old Europe are all badly off. Our 
 affairs are by far too artificial and complicated ; our diet 
 and mode of life want nature, and our social intercourse 
 is without love and benevolence. Every one is smooth 
 and polite, but no one is bold enough to be candid and 
 true, and an honest man, a man of natural learning and 
 sentiments, is in a very awkward position. It makes one 
 wish to be born in the South Sea Islands, as a so-called 
 savage, if it were only to get a pure and unadulterated 
 enjoyment of human life." 
 
 Look at the niceties of law, with which all men 
 are presumed to be acquainted, but of which no 
 private person knows anything, until he finds that he, 
 or his partners, or his predecessors, have committed 
 or omitted, some trivial thing, which may, however, 
 be fatal to his fortunes. Look at the tenure of land, 
 which is often such as to ensure worry even to the 
 most careful person. The largest city in the world 
 is mainly built on leasehold land, — which mode of 
 tenure an eminent person of the present day main- 
 tains to be a sufficient cause in itself for the bad 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] C
 
 34 fRIEXDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 building of that city. Thence come all manner of 
 contracts with respect to sub-letting, and with respect 
 to fire-insurance, and all manner of restrictions which 
 hinder usefulness, prevent improvement, and create 
 worry in abundance. 
 
 I have not hitherto alluded to the vexation and 
 worry occasioned by the confusion which prevails in 
 law-making, especially in a free country. If those 
 could be consulted on whom the law is to act, many 
 grievances and vexations might be avoided. As it 
 is, a new law, generally completed in a hurry, and 
 being the subject of innumerable compromises, is a 
 thoroughly tentative process, and probably requires 
 amendment before it has becrun to work. 
 
 -&* 
 
 If we turn to that great branch of parliamentary 
 law which comes under the head of Private Bills, we 
 shall find that matters are still worse in this direction. 
 In fact, you have only to mention the words " Private 
 Bill " to any person who has had experience in such 
 transactions, and even if he be of a very placid 
 nature, the chances are that he will break out into 
 a passion, and narrate to you grievances so intolerable 
 that he imagines he is the only unlucky person who 
 has endured them.
 
 WORRY. 35 
 
 We have already touched upon the miseries and 
 worries of conjoint enterprise. Well, indeed, might 
 Sixtus the Fifth exclaim, — " He that has partners has 
 masters ! " and he might have added, " He that has 
 subordinates has torments." Hardly anybody knows 
 how to obey. Indeed it requires a very clever man, 
 and a scrupulous one, to be obedient. All persons who 
 have been in command will tell you of the sufferings 
 they have endured from subordinates thinking for 
 themselves, as they say, and acting for themselves, on 
 occasions when supreme obedience is necessary. Men 
 in command have no time to explain ; and this law 
 holds good from great generals down to the masters 
 of one or two servants. The Duke of Wellington 
 issues orders that certain divisions of the Peninsular 
 army are to move in a certain direction, by a road 
 not the shortest, and not apparently the best. Before 
 dawn he is on the road. The troops do not come. 
 The Duke, rightly conjecturing what had happened, 
 gallops off to the other route, and surprises these 
 divisions by his presence at a point where it was 
 impossible to pass, but at which, knowing how likely 
 men are to disobey orders, he expects, and fears to 
 find them.* 
 
 1 Vide Napier, War in the Peninsula, iv. p. 385.
 
 36 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Such being the difficulties of acting with others, 
 whether as equals or subordinates, it might have been 
 expected that none but shrewd and strong men would 
 have the courage to embark in adventures over which 
 they are likely to have so loose and wavering a hold. 
 But, strange to say, the persons, generally speaking, 
 who are most attracted by the apparent benefits to be 
 derived from conjoint enterprises, are the least fitted 
 to embark in such undertakings, requiring, as they do, 
 a bustling tiresomeness, a questioning activity, and con- 
 siderable knowledge of affairs to begin with. From 
 the absence, however, of these qualities in many of 
 those persons who have embarked in great enter- 
 prises, it comes that, borne by steam, we travel over 
 railroad lines laid, if I may so express it, in the ruin 
 of unnumbered families. We cannot wonder that 
 Charles Lamb should speak of the " sweet simplicity 
 of the three per cents ; " yet it would be ruinous 
 to a nation if everybody studied this simplicity in 
 the arrangement of his fortune ; and as a large 
 majority of men would almost rather be ruined than 
 be inactive or non-enterprising, all one can do in 
 warning men against the miseries and worries inci- 
 dent to conjoint action, is just to suggest to them 
 whether they are the fit persons to enter upon such 
 undertakings.
 
 WORRY. 37 
 
 Then come the worries, not by any means un- 
 noticed in this age, inflicted by routine. Now rou- 
 tine is not to be despised. If you were ever to see a 
 businessv which demands a considerable amount of 
 routine attempted to be carried on by too little 
 routine, or by none, you would almost be surprised 
 at the magnitude of the evils that arise from this 
 neglect. Yet if carried beyond bounds, and routine 
 seldom knows where to stop, what a fertile source of 
 worry it becomes. 
 
 Worry is so extensive a subject that you might 
 descant upon it from early morn to lingering eve of 
 the longest day of the year, and yet leave many of the 
 fields of its operation unploUghed and in fallow. I 
 might have spoken, for instance, of the worry of 
 education — not as regards one's self alone, but as 
 regards the education of those about one, and under 
 one, whose welfare must be attended to. In these 
 days, when little is to go by favour, and much by 
 proficiency, this form of worry is terribly increased. 
 It is sometimes forgotten that each generation has 
 somehow or other to teach the next. There may be 
 more skilful elementary works than there used to 
 be, but this gain is more than counterbalanced by 
 the increased quantity of knowledge that is now
 
 3^ FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 demanded of every one ; and babies do not come 
 into the world a bit wiser or more learned than they 
 used to come. 
 
 Again, I might have touched upon the worry con- 
 nected with charity, which once was a simple matter, 
 or at least seemed to be so, but now is encumbered 
 with all manner of questions relating to political 
 economy, and has to deal with such a complex state 
 of affairs that the most benevolent men are perfectly 
 bewildered, not only as to what to give, but whether 
 to give at all, and how to give. 
 
 Finally, I might have commented at length, and 
 with painful details, upon the worry of keeping up 
 appearances, upon the worry of governing servants, 
 upon the worry of maintaining a household, upon the 
 worry of buying and selling ; but I forbear. Enough 
 has been said, or at least suggested, with reference to 
 social, domestic, political, educational, legal, financial, 
 military, and politico-economical worries, to indicate 
 the extent and influence of the great goddess, whose 
 powers I began this essay by enlarging upon, and to 
 show that her empire is larger than the Assyrian, the 
 Median, the Roman, the Gallic, or the Anglian, — 
 that, in fact, she not only rules over a territory on 
 which the sun never sets, but even that the dark
 
 WORRY. 
 
 hours of the night are peopled by her myrmidons, 
 and that men's dreams are by no means freed from 
 her overpowering and oppressive sway. 
 
 --r^ceyj. 
 
 Ellesmcre. Catch me asking again for any more 
 essays ! You have brought back all the nuisances of life 
 so vividly that you have made me quite uncomfortable. 
 Our six weeks will soon be over, and we shall be in the 
 thick of all this trouble again. But your remedies, my 
 man, your remedies ! True art should always be healing 
 and restorative. I think nothing of the man who only 
 makes one uncomfortable. I hate tragedies, and the 
 people who write them. 
 
 Milverton. Great sorrows absorb all minor evils. 
 
 Ellcs?nere. Is that meant for comfort ? 
 
 Milverton. Yes. Let a man think, when he is immersed 
 in all manner of vexations, what it would be to have a real 
 sorrow ; and all that has been vexing him will seem for 
 the moment trivial. 
 
 Dunsford. These high thoughts are the true consola- 
 tions. 
 
 Ellesmere. Yes, yes, my dear Dunsford, of course we 
 know all these things, and they are very proper for you 
 to say ; but the ingenious Milverton is sure to have 
 twenty or thirty odd, out-of-the-way modes of consola- 
 tion : " Lights, easements, watercourses, privileges," as 
 we lawyers say in a lease.
 
 4 o FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. The multiplicity of annoyances in 
 life — each pulling in a different direction from the others, 
 and demanding a man's attention — keep the mind in 
 equilibrium, and leave the man his sanity. 
 
 Ellesmcre. A great comfort, no doubt. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I have found it so. 
 
 Ellesmere. No turtle ! no Perigord pie ! The salmon 
 spoilt on the journey ! The canvas-back duck utterly 
 ruined by the voyage ! Washy melted butter ! Ludi- 
 crous bread-sauce, made by a country cook ! — Mr. Mid- 
 hurst's mind preserves its equilibrium, and Mr. Midhurst 
 eats bread and cheese thankfully. Yes, I understand 
 that. The failure of the salmon alone would have been 
 a calamity too great to be borne. But what says Milver- 
 ton ? Where are his consolations ? 
 
 Milverton. Very few people fully appreciate the fun 
 of civilized life. It is an immense compensation for 
 the other evils. There is ludicrous mismanagement in 
 some department of human affairs : it comes to light : 
 while instantly there are bustle and discussion ; wit, 
 humour, sophistry, and wisdom are all brought to bear 
 upon the peccant part. Gradually some improvement is 
 made ; and, meanwhile, mankind have had a great deal 
 of amusement and instruction out of the affair. 
 
 Ellesmere. True : but I should like to hear now, how 
 some part of this needless worry is to be prevented. 
 
 Milverton. One great remedy would be in a better 
 direction of man's work. It is astonishing how much 
 lost labour there is in the world. This would be an 
 important subject to follow out. I might have some 
 difficulty in showing the close connection that there is
 
 WORRY. 41 
 
 between misplaced labour and the vexations of mankind ; 
 but there is such a connection. 
 
 Ellesmere. Instances ! instances ! Give us hosts of 
 instances. The first that come to hand. 
 
 Milverton. Well, I will tell you the very last thing 
 that struck me of this kind. As we passed through 
 London I happened to notice a great many stonemasons 
 at work : and what do you think they were doing ? What 
 I am going to say is almost incredible, and yet the fact 
 is very common. They were resolutely chipping holes in 
 the stones, in order that they might look like rough stones 
 brought from the quarries without having been worked 
 there. In some great building somewhere or other 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. The Pitti Palace at Florence. 
 
 Milverton. Such stones have been put into the lower 
 parts of the building, and consequently it had been 
 thought good sense and good taste to do the same thing 
 in London, the unfittest place in the world for such orna- 
 mentation. These holes soon become receptacles of dirt, 
 and add to the general squalidity. Now such foolish 
 expenditure as this is at the bottom of a great deal of 
 bankruptcy, though it may not figure openly in the 
 bankrupt's accounts. Thus folly is quietly developed 
 into the higher stage of being called Worry. But come 
 here, Ellesmere : you ask for instances. Turn round, 
 with your back to the company. (Ellesmere did as he 
 was bid.) Ladies and gentlemen, this is Sir John Elles- 
 mere, a great lawyer, who is writing a treatise on con- 
 tingent remainders, and who has a good reason for 
 everything he says and does — and wears. May I ask, 
 Sir John, whether you have ever made use of these four
 
 42 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 buttons at the back of your coat ? Indeed, lives there a 
 man who has made use of them ? 
 
 Ellestnere (taking his seat again). Oh, this is too 
 absurd. 
 
 Milverton. No ; it is not. I once asked a man who 
 delights in statistics, how many of these needless buttons 
 he thought had been made ? I told him I really wanted 
 some rough kind of estimate. He thought I was going to 
 enter deeply into the mysteries of the button trade, and 
 probably foresaw some motion in Parliament in which 
 his calculations would come out with credit. In a few 
 days he brought his calculation. It considerably ex- 
 ceeded 300 millions. — I forget the odd figures in which 
 such calculators delight. 
 
 Ellestnere. Upon my word, it isn't so absurd. Besides 
 there is the covering and the stitching and the sewing — 
 am I not using the right words, Miss Mildred ? But, 
 Milverton, while you were about it, why did not you and 
 your detestable statistical man honour the female sex 
 with some of your attention? Why, even Miss Blanche 
 and Miss Mildred are covered all over with needlessness, 
 and each one of them has wasted more in good material 
 than the 300 million buttons, for the use of which the 
 male sex cannot perfectly account. 
 
 Blanche. Ah, but all we do in the way of dress makes 
 more beauty in the world, whereas you men only make 
 yourselves more absurd when you are in full dress. 
 
 Milverton. Then, what a subject furniture is when 
 we are commenting on the useless. I suppose it often 
 happens that at least a quarter of the work in any well- 
 furnished room is useless and delusive — carefully finished
 
 WORRY. 43 
 
 knobs to unreal drawers, sham pillars, sham cornices, 
 sham bell-pulls, sham book-cases, in a word, scores of 
 shams. 
 
 Ellesmere. Now, Milverton, go into large matters. Do 
 not tell us things which Pugin and Ruskin and Scott and 
 many others have been telling us for some time. 
 
 Milverton. Will you have something political which 
 creates expense and worry, and which is at the same 
 time not only useless, but very mischievous ? 
 
 Ellesmere. Yes. 
 
 Milverton. The practice of members vacating their 
 seats upon receiving certain government offices. Can you 
 invent a better device for narrowing the Prime Minister 
 in his choice of men to fill great offices — for bringing 
 unnecessary expense and worry upon men at the precise 
 point of time when all their energies are wanted in the 
 difficult commencement of administration, — and for em- 
 barrassing government with pledges at the very moment 
 when it ought to be least fettered ? You may be the 
 fittest man to be Attorney-General, but being a tire- 
 somely honest individual, you are just the person to be 
 rather shaky — if I may use the term — with your con- 
 stituency, and liable to be defeated upon some crotchet 
 of theirs which less scrupulous men would easily over- 
 come. 
 
 Ellesmere. It is, it certainly is, a silly practice, and 
 should be done away with as soon as possible, as a thing 
 distinctly hindering the service of the state. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I would go much farther in the same 
 direction, and am prepared to maintain that the greatest 
 reform in parliament would be, the giving official seats in
 
 44 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 either house to certain officers of government. These 
 need not exceed ten or fifteen in number. There is not 
 the slightest danger of their bringing too much power to 
 the Crown ; and the wide range that they would give the 
 Premier in choosing associates and subordinates would 
 double his power of effective administration. 
 
 Duns for J. This is a plan, Mr. Midhurst, which Mil- 
 verton has always urged upon us whenever we have been 
 talking over these subjects. I am a Whig Parson, and 
 have always looked up to Sydney Smith as a model of 
 political thinking for a clergyman, but I cannot discern 
 the least danger to the constitution in this proposed 
 reform. If I did, I would oppose it, however much it 
 might aid official men, and further good administration. 
 
 Ellcsmere. Bravely spoken, my dear old tutor ; it is 
 very clear to me, though, that you will never be a bishop. 
 nor even wear the lesser apron of a dean. You must not 
 speak out your sentiments so distinctly as you do. You 
 do not give me the idea of being a safe man. A man to 
 rise in the world should always be hazy in the expression 
 (jf his opinions. 
 
 Dunsford. I do not want to rise in the world, Sir 
 John ; and if I did want to rise in the world, I would not 
 suppress my opinions, or endeavour to express them 
 hazily, for all the bishoprics that ever were created. 
 
 ElUsmere. I call that rampant virtue ; but I know it 
 ii throwing pearls before unclean animals to scatter 
 worldly wisdom in the way of Dunsford. So now to 
 other matters. Give us some more instances, Milverton, 
 of worry and waste. Feed me with facts. I dote upon 
 f.icts.
 
 WORRY. 45 
 
 Milvcrion. Take the whole question of adultera- 
 tion 
 
 Ellesmere. I won't stand this. I've heard enough of 
 sanitary reform, and seen so little done in it, that I 
 decline to stay here while Milverton exhausts seven blue- 
 books, and succeeds in proving that some men are 
 scoundrels, while others are fools and fqindants, and that 
 the great mass of the public are gulled, and swindled, 
 and poisoned to an. almost unlimited extent. No, I 
 will not. 
 
 Milverton. Now do sit down, Ellesmere, and listen 
 for a few moments. I will really put the thing in a new 
 light. You may remember, that in the course of the 
 essay I put "buying and selling" as two of the fertile 
 causes of worry. Now, consider what a serious thing it 
 is that in any civilised community you have the greatest 
 difficulty in buying the thing you want ; that you arc- 
 obliged to spend time, take great precautions, and make 
 careful arrangements, if you wish to purchase any simple 
 commodity ; that there should be persons whose business 
 it is with great skill to baffle and delude you when you are 
 endeavouring to make this purchase. I put aside for the 
 moment all question of humanity or inhumanity, and 
 bring the matter under the head of needless worry. You 
 are ordered to procure such a drug, or such an oil, or 
 such a condiment, for your sick child. By hard work 
 you have got the money. That is the first step in the 
 process, and an important one ; but after that is settled, 
 you will find it quite an occupation to get the pure drug, 
 and the right oil, and the unadulterated condiment. 
 Dunsford. Now don't talk in this cold, business-like
 
 4 6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 way. I do say that of all the iniquities on the face of the 
 earth the most cruel and irredeemable is the sale of adul- 
 terated food to the poor. Here comes a poor labouring 
 man. He has just done a hard stroke of work. He 
 wants to slake his thirst, and you give him some con- 
 founded 
 
 Ellesmere. Don't swear, my reverend friend. 
 Dunsford. You give him some detestable concoction 
 pretending to be the thing he asks for, and it not only 
 does not support his strength, but it does not assuage his 
 thirst. Indeed it is so made as to increase thirst. He 
 comes again and again for the vile draught. The poor 
 fellow gets drunk, beats his wife perhaps, and I am sent 
 for the next day to lecture him. I declare I am ashamed 
 to do it sometimes, when I think how deeply guilty men 
 of our own class and station are in this matter. The 
 mischief is preventable. At any rate it might be greatly- 
 modified— so you official people tell me— Why don't you 
 do it? 
 
 Ellesmere. Three cheers for our reverend demagogue ! 
 He is worthy of a triple apron. By Jove, if I become 
 Lord Chancellor, you shall have all my livings (at least 
 in succession), and shall go from living to living, preach- 
 ing at each place a fiery sermon against the adulteration 
 of beer. 
 
 Milverton. The magnitude of the evil is yet unknown 
 to the public. A little time ago I went to see one of the 
 great surgeons at the East end of the town — one of 
 the principal surgeons of a large hospital. After we had 
 finished the business I came about, we began to discuss 
 sanitary matters, which he seemed more eager to enter
 
 WORRY. 47 
 
 upon than I was, and he said to me : — " Half the cases 
 that are brought to me are caused by the adulteration of 
 food." What is the good of legislation, if it cannot reach 
 such an evil as this ? 
 
 Ellesmere. Ah, how true are the words of Eccle- 
 siasticHS, "As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings 
 of the stones ; so doth sin stick close between buying and 
 selling." 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Not one of you seems to have touched 
 upon the higher branches of worry — worry on a great 
 scale — national worry. Look at the fate of England. If 
 ever there was a people that would be content to be quiet 
 it is the English ; and see how we have been dragged 
 over the continent by Plantagenets and Tudors and 
 Stuarts, throwing away our money by sackfuls ; and now, 
 at this advanced era in the world, we are still any day at 
 the mercy of the most foolish of continental mankind. 
 At any moment the proceedings of some small stupid 
 despot, or wild democratic fanatic, may plunge us into a 
 European war. When incendiary fires were frequent in 
 England, it was often found that some idiot, or some 
 stupid boy, was the wilful cause of it ; and so it often is 
 with greater conflagrations. Our own people, if not eager 
 to begin the fray, are very unwilling to close it ; and of 
 course, ultimately, it has to be paid for by every kind 
 of privation and misery. Neither does one see any clear 
 remedy. We occupy a certain position in the world, 
 and have the cares, the anxieties, the expenses, and the 
 responsibilities belonging to such a position. 
 
 Milverton. A more saddening reflection to me is, the 
 increasing influence and wider spread of commercial and
 
 4 S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 financial misfortunes, and to observe how quiet, innocent 
 obscure persons, keeping to their own work in their own 
 department, and who understand- nothing about the rate 
 of exchange, are quietly overwhelmed by some over- 
 speculation in a distant part of the world, of which they 
 scarcely know the name, and certainly know nothing 
 about the geography. We are all so intertwined together 
 now, that the same wave — I am speaking of financial 
 and commercial waves — beats upon every shore, making 
 wrecks everywhere ; even of those who seldom venture far 
 from land. 
 
 Ellcsmcre. Now you have passed from worry to dis- 
 aster. The only persons who are trained to keep to the 
 subject they are discussing, are lawyers, and they do keep 
 to it ; whereas even clergymen occasionally wander from 
 the text : and as for authors — why Milverton would begin 
 a paper on Bank stock, and end with a discussion on the 
 Pelagian heresy ; and if you were to follow him through- 
 out, the reasoning would be pretty close, and the con- 
 nection between the two subjects self-evident — at least to 
 his mind. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Well, I will keep to the subject closely 
 in the next remark I make, which is one of approbation ; 
 for I maintain, you are quite right, Milverton, in com- 
 menting severely upon the needless worry connected with 
 tion. I am sure that species of nuisance might be 
 smoothed a little. The Assessed Taxes are a mine of 
 
 • IV. 
 
 Milverton. Yes: they are ; but my especial aversion 
 
 is the Income Tax, chiefly on account of the trouble it 
 
 BS, the temptation it offers to the unscrupulous, and the
 
 WORK Y. 49 
 
 torment that it is to the scrupulous. I suspect that men 
 highly placed little know the trouble and vexation it is 
 to men not so highly placed to describe and estimate 
 their incomes, and still more what a trouble it is for lone 
 women and ignorant persons to do so. As belonging to 
 the former class, take men of letters, for instance, and 
 poor professional men. Consider the bit and scrap way in 
 which they get their money ; a guinea here, five guineas 
 there, and so on ; and how, of necessity, irregular all these 
 transactions must be. They have no person to keep their 
 accounts for them : and though of course the keeping of 
 accounts is a most desirable thing, it seems hard that a 
 government should force it on men who can do without it. 
 
 But I confess I hate all compulsory returns. I see that 
 there are many excellent people, statistically minded, who 
 are bent upon getting farmers to make returns with respect 
 to the land under cultivation. I hope with all my heart 
 the farmers will steadily resist. If these statistical people 
 want the information, let them get it for themselves. All 
 information is purchaseable. If the managers of the Times 
 wanted the information, and chose to go to the expense of 
 getting it, of course they would get it. I wonder, by the 
 way, whether any of these statistical people have ever 
 managed land themselves ; whether they have ever entered 
 into the difficulties of keeping farm accounts. Those 
 who have, and who know what a labour both for mind and 
 body the work of a good farmer is, will be slow to put 
 upon him any additional burden or botheration. 
 
 But I object to the thing on general principles. The 
 world is plagued enough with the returns that it has 
 already to make, and as far as I can, I will resist its 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series] D
 
 5 o FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 having any more to make. As it is, too, we seldom know 
 enough about the returns that we must deal with, and are 
 often scarcely aware of what we are paying in rates and 
 taxes when the claims for payment come in to us. It has 
 been well said by somebody, that an Englishman will 
 pay, or endeavour to pay, any demand made by any 
 person, in the guise of a tax-gatherer, bringing any scrap 
 of any paper having an official look about it. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. What you were saying, Milverton, 
 about the intrusions which men of any eminence have 
 to endure, put me in mind of an eastern friend of mine. 
 He was one of the foremost men in the town where he lived. 
 His name was AH Ben Hassan. I carried out letters of 
 introduction to him from England ; and, as I came to 
 towns which were not far from his, many persons pressed 
 upon me other missives of recommendation, all addressed 
 to Ali Ben Hassan, " the Much-beloved.'' I was curious 
 to see this Ali Ben Hassan, "the Much-beloved;" and, 
 before going to any one else, went to him. He received 
 me very courteously, but there was an unmistakeable air 
 of weariness about the man, which, when I came to know 
 him better, was easily accounted for. Ali took a fancy to 
 me (perhaps it was because I could speak so little to him), 
 and I sat often with him on his musnud. I noticed that 
 whenever we were about to enjoy ourselves, and when his 
 Nubian slave had handed the amber mouth-piece of his 
 master's chibouk to him, poor Ali was not suffered to take 
 y fragrant whiffs before some kinsman, or some neigh- 
 bour, or some stranger came to demand aid, advice, or 
 interference on the part of Ali Ben Hassan, "the Much- 
 beloved." None of the applicants were shame-faced.
 
 WORRY. 
 
 5i 
 
 Why was he called "the Much-Beloved," if it was not 
 his duty to assist all comers ? Ali Ben Hassan seemed to 
 think so too. No word of complaint ever fell from his 
 grave lips as he pensively laid down the amber mouth- 
 piece ; and when he resumed it again, it was with the air 
 of a man whose destiny it was never to enjoy any pleasure 
 long. 
 
 At last the plague approached that town. I learnt of 
 the impending calamity from the ominous whispers and 
 frightened faces of my friends. Ali Ben Hassan also 
 mentioned the fact ; but not in a whisper, and certainly 
 without the slightest sign of alarm : indeed, I almost 
 fancied that I could trace a certain sort of satisfaction in 
 his countenance when he communicated the intelligence 
 to me. 
 
 The plague came : the plague raged. Almost every 
 man avoided his fellow-man as if he were a lion. Ali Ben 
 Hassan and I smoked our chibouks in silence, for the most 
 part uninterrupted. One day I said to him :— " Ali Ben 
 Hassan, how is it that thou art different from other men ? 
 Why is it that thou dost not fear the plague ? Would not 
 his townsmen miss ' the Much-beloved,' if the Angel of 
 Death were to come into this abode, where the threshold 
 is worn down by the footsteps of those who seek the 
 generous man for his bounty, the wise man for his advice, 
 the gracious man for his consolation ?" 
 
 Ali Ben Hassan smiled a sad smile. " Listen," he said, 
 " to the story of Ali Ben Hassan, ' the Much-beloved,' and 
 the very wearied. 
 
 " Allah made me of a tender and pitiful heart : Allah 
 made me a pleasant companion ; and from my boyhood
 
 5a FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 upwards, all men have said to themselves : 'I am weary, 
 I am sad, I am in trouble, I will go and see Ali Ben 
 Hassan ; mayhap he will comfort me.' The chief men of 
 the city bid me to their feasts ; the poor men also rely 
 upon me as a guest. Even my wives do not become tired 
 of my company. My kinsfolk, my friends, my acquaint- 
 ances, and even the passers-by say : — ' Let us go and talk 
 with Ali Ben Hassan ;' and each blames me because I 
 am not always with him and uniformly intent upon his 
 :rs ; for am I not 'the Much-Beloved,' and do I not 
 belong wholly to every one. 
 
 " There came a flight of quails from the desert. They 
 darkened the air. Almost every one's house in the 
 city was stored with these savoury birds. Men ran with 
 gifts of them even to Noorsha Beg, my savage neighbour, 
 who never said a good word, nor did a kind deed, for any- 
 body. Ali Ben Hassan, 'the Much-beloved,' had no 
 quails brought to him, though all his neighbours came 
 to consult him as to what they should do with their 
 abundance — but who cares to gratify 'the Much-beloved ?' 
 He must be content with a name. This neglect of my 
 townsmen I care not for; but I would fain have some 
 time to work for mine own necessities, and to think mine 
 own thoughts. The favour which I have found with men 
 is a burden to me, and yet I could not now bear to be 
 without it. Thou wilt soon depart, O yellow-haired 
 stranger from the West, and wilt return to thine own land. 
 ].• t the seeds of wisdom fall upon a soil which the fruit- 
 giving river has lately flowed over. Be not too much 
 beloved, and live in peace. Thou seest this plague : it is 
 a sore grief to me, for the men of the city fall fast ; but it
 
 WORRY. 53 
 
 gives me my only time of rest. Behold, have we not 
 smoked out our chibouks, and the curtain has not been 
 lifted aside ! Go now : may Allah be with thee, and 
 mayst thou never have a name greater than thou canst 
 bear." 
 
 There were tears in the words of Ali Ben Hassan, for 
 his voice was marvellously sweet and soft. And I journeyed 
 on my way, and saw his face no more. 
 
 Ellesmere. Poor Ali Ben Hassan ! I can well imagine 
 how tenderly Mr. Midhurst sympathised with him — 
 especially about the quails. I am happily not very famous 
 yet, and certainly shall never be known as "John Elles- 
 mere Ben Ellesmere, the Much-beloved ;" but I can per- 
 ceive what worry must attend upon overmuch popularity. 
 
 Blanche. What a delightful thing it is, that children, 
 at least, escape this worry you have all been talking so 
 eloquently about. 
 
 Milverton. Yes : I have never been more struck with 
 that than when observing a family in the middle class of 
 life going to the seaside. There is the anxious mother 
 wondering how they shall manage to stow away all the 
 children when they get down. Visions of damp sheets 
 oppress her. The cares of packing sit upon her soul. 
 Doubts of what will become of the house when it is left 
 are a constant drawback from her thoughts of enjoyment ; 
 and she confides to the partner of her cares how willingly, 
 if it were not for the dear children, she would stay at 
 home. He, poor man, has not an easy time of it. He is 
 meditating over the expense, and how it shall be provided 
 for. He knows, if he has any knowledge of the world, 
 that the said expense will somehow or other exceed any
 
 54 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 estimate he and his wife have made of it. He is studying 
 the route of the journey, and is perplexed by the various 
 modes of going. This one would be less expensive, but 
 would take more time. And then time always turns into 
 expense on a journey. In a word, the old birds are as full 
 of care and trouble as a hen with ducklings ; but the young 
 birds ! Some of them have never seen the sea before, and 
 visions of unspeakable delight fill their souls — visions that 
 will almost be fulfilled. The journey, and the cramped 
 accommodation, and the packing, and the everything out 
 of place, are matters of pure fun and anticipated joy to 
 them. 
 
 Ellesmere. Quite right, quite right. Let us enjoy life 
 while we can. I too am a boy, and look ! there is the 
 other boy Walter down by the river, making ducks and 
 drakes with stones — which is really a delightful occu- 
 pation. You have all the pleasure of feeling like a spend- 
 thrift without being one. I'll go and cut him out, and 
 you may all go on talking about worry till you become 
 as mournful as a very rich man who has made a ques- 
 tionable investment. 
 
 So saying Ellesmere rushed off to the water's edge : 
 we followed more leisurely ; and so our conversation 
 was broken up for that day.* 
 
 1 What a comment upon Milverton's remarks with respect to 
 
 intrusive letter-writing is furnished hy the following notification, 
 
 itly put forth by the great Humboldt : — " Overwhelmed hy 
 
 the number of letters sent me, which are increasing every day, 
 
 luting from 1, 600 to 2,000 per annum— many, too, being on
 
 WORK V. 55 
 
 the most futile subjects, such as demands for my autograph, and 
 offers to cure me of all diseases — I once more make a public 
 appeal to the persons who wish me well, and request them not to 
 occupy themselves so much with what concerns me, in order that, 
 with the diminution of strength, physical and intellectual, which 
 I experience, I maybe allowed a little leisure for study and com- 
 position. I trust that this step, to which I have recourse with 
 reluctance, will not be interpreted unkindly." — Note addressed by 
 Baron de Humboldt to the Berlin journals.
 
 56 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 We were staying at the picturesque little town of 
 Namur for a few days.* Often we strayed up the 
 grassy heights of those fortifications, which have seen 
 so much warfare, and which so pleasantly recall King 
 William the Third and my Uncle Toby. The con- 
 versation naturally took a military turn. Milverton 
 deplored the increase of barracks, armies, camps ; in 
 which lamentation I ventured to coincide thoroughly 
 with him. Mr. Midhurst, as a diplomatist, was rather 
 inclined to discuss the political state of Europe, and 
 to show, if not the just reasons, the causes of this 
 increase of military expenditure. Ellesmere flitted 
 from side to side in the argument ; and, as his way 
 is, tried to embroil it more and more. Entering into 
 details, Milverton gave us an estimate of the expenses 
 
 * I see I have made a mistake in the arrangement of these 
 conversations at the very outset, for we certainly were at Namur 
 before we came to the Rhine ; but I did not promise to be precise 
 upon these points. — D.
 
 WAR. 57 
 
 of the Russian war, which he said, speaking from 
 authority, exceeded 70 millions of pounds.* He then 
 proceeded to show the evil effects of the increase in 
 taxation thus caused, and the extent to which it 
 affected the comfort and well-being of individuals 
 in the different classes of the state. I remember that 
 he accounted for the largeness of expense in the 
 Russian war as occasioned, according to the opinion 
 of an eminent stateman and financier, by the sud- 
 denness of the war. At last, after some discussion, 
 Ellesmere thus expressed himself: — 
 
 Ellesmcre. Do not let us have any of this desultory 
 talk. I see you care about this subject, Milverton. Let 
 us have an essay from you on it. An essay on any sub- 
 ject is not worth much in itself — is likely indeed to be 
 rather a nuisance ; but it gives room for good discussion- 
 It affords extended lines for attack and defence (you see 
 I am quite military in my metaphors) ; and it may give 
 some method to our talk upon the 'subject. 
 
 Milverton. No, no ! No more essays, if you please, 
 from me. I sometimes wish I had never written a single 
 essay. They are such dogmatic things, at any rate in 
 appearance ; and as I grow older I hate dogmatizing more 
 
 * It has recently been ascertained, from official sources, that 
 the expenditure for the Russian war, including the Sardinian loan, 
 may be set down as 70,849,859/.
 
 5S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 and more. Besides, if you comment upon errors, most 
 people are apt to think that you are free from them your- 
 selves, or that you fancy you are, whereas you seldom write 
 tolerably about anything that you have not suffered from ; 
 and the essays of virtuous and good men, like the his- 
 tories of happy countries, would be pre-eminently stupid. 
 Now, in the very case before us, I should have to talk 
 down war, and to be very wise about it ; but when an 
 occasion for war arises, I am just as likely to be enthu- 
 siastic as any of my fellow-countrymen, and just as likely 
 to be led away by a popular cry. Then one writes about 
 the matter, and seems so wise and forbearing ; being 
 conscious all the time that it is but seeming. 
 
 Ellesmere. Yes, I know that you would get up at five 
 o'clock in the morning to see the Guards commence their 
 march, and would cheer them as vociferously as any one 
 of the rest of the mob. But still let us appeal from 
 Philip after dinner to Philip before dinner the next day, 
 and let us have an essay on War ; only do not begin at 
 the beginning, and give us long quotations from Thomas 
 Aquinas to prove that war is in some cases justifiable. 
 We will take that for granted. There is always war, 
 justifiable war, between me and Walter : also between 
 Fixer and all other dogs of his size and courage. 
 
 As to what you have said about dogmatizing, I hold that 
 to be frivolous. Large, fluent, unquestioning, unhesitating, 
 unscrupulous dogmatism is one of the grand elements of 
 success in modern life ; as it was in the early days of 
 Greek philosophy, when a philosopher had only to assert, 
 • I ire is the principle of the universe," or, "All is water," 
 or, " Nature abhors a vacuum," or, " Bodies descend
 
 WAR. 59 
 
 because they have a tendency that way,"— and instantly, 
 after uttering any of these bold sayings, crowds of scholars 
 sousrht the wise man's door ; cities contended for the 
 honour of being his birthplace ; submissive crowds made 
 way before him ; and in short, to use modern parlance, 
 he " kept his carriage " on a dogma. If you have doubts 
 upon anything that you talk about, you will not even 
 keep a gig. 
 
 Dunsford. Now that is what astonishes me — namely, 
 that so many dogmas and dogmatizers having been 
 found out in the course of ages, people should go on 
 dogmatizing just the same, in art, in science, in literature, 
 and in life. 
 
 Ellesmere. Allow me to say, sir, as Dr. Johnson would 
 have said, that your last remark shows you to be equally 
 ignorant of men and things. What is the use of philo- 
 sophers, critics, and prominent persons of all kinds, but 
 to pronounce distinct opinions on all subjects human and 
 divine, and to save the rest of us the trouble of thinking ? 
 In my essay on success in life I shall show that self- 
 assertion is excellent — but all assertion is good. Let us 
 hear no more against dogmatizing. Do not deprive men 
 rashly of one of their chief comforts in life. 
 
 But now about this essay that we are to have. 
 
 Milverton. You will not have an essay, but since you 
 are so pertinacious, you shall have a solemn talk upon 
 the subject. I will think over what I have to say, make 
 a few notes, and coming to this spot to-morrow, at this 
 hour, I will talk out to you all that I have thought upon 
 the matter. 
 
 Ellesmere. Talk is not so good as writing. If I upset
 
 60 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 you upon any particular point, you will exclaim, "That 
 is not exactly what I said, or at least what I meant to 
 say," and there will arise a mist of parliamentary expla- 
 nation, and the force of my arguments will be lost in 
 the mist. But I suppose I must be contented with 
 what I can get, and so we will have this solemn palaver 
 to-morrow. 
 
 We did come on the ensuing afternoon, and Milver- 
 ton commenced his talk in the following manner: — 
 
 IT is now eighteen centuries and a half since a new 
 religion was preached to mankind — a religion 
 full of peace and gentleness and mercy. On the day 
 when the Founder of that religion was born, the peace 
 of Europe was maintained by about three hundred 
 thousand soldiers.* 
 
 * Milverton seems to have underrated the Roman forces. I 
 have consulted with my learned friend, Mr. W. B. Donne, who 
 gives me the following as his calculation of the state of the mili- 
 tary establishment, a.d. i. 
 
 i. Legionaries. Augustus fixed the number of legions at 25. 
 < If each legion the full complement was — 
 
 Foot . . 6,100 
 Horse . . 726 
 
 25 x 6,826 = 170,650 
 To this sum add a nearly equal 
 
 number of Auxiliaries . . say 160,000 
 
 Carried forward . . 330,650
 
 WAR. 6 1 
 
 There are now * about two millions and a half, on 
 the peace establishment. Picture to yourself what 
 
 Brought forward . . 330,650 
 
 2. Praetorian or household troops, recruited 
 from Latium, Etruria, Umbria, and the old 
 Colonire alone, about 5,500 . . . 5,500 
 exclusive of Emeriti, or Vexillarii, say 500 
 and of the Batavian horse . . 500 
 
 3. Garrison of Rome (permanent) — 
 4 Cohorts of 1,500 men each . . . 6,000 
 
 4. Semi-military force, "Urbisvigiles," partly 
 police, partly fire-brigade, say 700 . . 700 
 
 1,000 
 
 Land forces = 343,850 
 
 5. Naval Armament — 
 
 Ravenna Fleet) ,, , 
 
 „, > 250 galleys each. 
 Misenum Fleet) p s J 
 
 Forum Tulii squadron, 125 galleys. 
 Flotillas in Black Sea. 
 Flotillas on Euphrates, Rhine, Danube. 
 Omitting the slaves who rowed or formed the crews, the 
 number of troops employed in the naval armament, including the 
 " Custodes Pontium et Vadorum " who were not supplied from 
 the Castra Stativa, can hardly have been less than 30,000. 
 
 Add to this the contingents furnished by such Reguli or inde- 
 pendent kings, as Cotys of Thrace, Antiochus of Commagene, 
 and Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia, &c, say 5,000. 
 
 Land forces . . . 343,850 
 Naval forces . . . 30,000 
 
 Contingents . . . 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 Grand Total 
 
 
 378,850 men. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 The 
 
 pay 
 
 of a 
 
 Praetorian was 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 s 
 
 per 
 
 diem. 
 
 The 
 
 pay 
 
 of a 
 
 Legionary 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 per 
 
 diem. 
 
 The 
 
 pay 
 
 of a 
 
 Tribunus 
 * Written in 
 
 IS59 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 per 
 
 annum
 
 62 
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 these two millions and a half cost us, the peaceable 
 inhabitants of Europe, in daily pay, in rations, in 
 clothing, and in housing.* 
 
 Go through these calculations carefully. Your time 
 can hardly be better spent than in making up such 
 accounts. Remember, too, that these unproductive 
 
 * The following approximate statement is taken from the 
 Almanack de Gotha, and other sources, which have been care- 
 fully consulted. It does not include the marine forces of any 
 state: and at the present moment, t when war is threatened, 
 there are probably 300,000 more men under arms. 
 
 Russia 
 
 
 
 600,000 
 
 Austria 
 
 
 
 380,000 
 
 France 
 
 
 
 366,064 
 
 Prussia 
 
 
 
 161,000 
 
 Turkey 
 
 
 
 143,500 
 
 England 
 
 
 
 140,000 
 
 Lesser German States 
 
 
 
 124,592 
 
 .Spain 
 
 
 
 112,000 
 
 Naples 
 
 
 
 92,586 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 
 
 87,682 
 
 Belgium 
 
 
 
 73,7i8 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 
 
 72,000 
 
 Holland . 
 
 
 
 58,495 
 
 Sardinia 
 
 
 
 48,273 
 
 den and Norway 
 
 
 
 42,000 
 
 1 r Italian States . 
 
 
 
 3M79 
 
 Principalities 
 
 
 
 34,144 
 
 Hanover .... 
 
 
 
 26,938 
 
 Portugal 
 
 
 
 26,849 
 
 >ny .... 
 
 
 
 25-396 
 
 Denmark .... 
 
 
 
 21,000 
 
 ce . . . . 
 
 
 
 9,686 
 
 San Marino 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 Total . 
 
 2,682,929 
 
 t 185 
 
 ?• 
 

 
 WAR. 63 
 
 soldiers might have been productive labourers and 
 artisans, so that you have to add the loss of their 
 labour, to the cost of their keep. 
 
 Try to imagine these millions of armed men, 
 defiling, without intermission, in long array before 
 you : the bright, alert, and ready-handed Frenchmen, 
 the stout hardy Prussians, the well-drilled Austrians, 
 the stalwart Danes, the gay Piedmontese, the sturdy 
 Dutchman, the much-enduring long-coated Russians, 
 the free-limbed, haughty, defiant Spaniards, and the 
 cool, resolute, solid-looking Englishmen. Bright sum- 
 mer days would wane away, as this vast armament, 
 with all its baggage and artillery, moved on before 
 your wearied eyes ; and all night long the unvaried 
 tramp of men and horses would still be heard 
 resounding. Something like a conception of the 
 numbers may be formed by considering that if every 
 man, woman, and child, to be found in London and 
 its suburbs,* were transformed into a soldier, the 
 number would about represent the effective force 
 of men at arms in Europe. Consider how the most 
 experienced Londoner loses his way sometimes in 
 that great city, and discovers 'districts of which he 
 
 * London and its suburbs include all the area from Futney to 
 Woolwich, and from Streatham to Hampstead.
 
 64 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 knew nothing before. Let him imagine these new 
 regions, as well as those parts of the town with which 
 he is familiar, to be suddenly peopled with soldiers 
 only. Let him not only traverse the highways, but 
 go into the houses, and see the sick and the aged 
 and the infantine, who seldom come into the streets, 
 and let him persevere in imagining these also to be 
 soldiers, and London one huge camp. He will then 
 have some idea of the extent of European armies, and 
 may reflect upon what it would cost to feed these 
 unproductive millions for a single day. 
 
 The first objection that will naturally be taken to 
 any arguments drawn from the above alarming state- 
 ment, is, that the population of Europe has greatly 
 increased. True : but consider at the same time 
 that there are not now those immense differences in 
 civilization which should invite the movement of 
 large hordes of men in any particular direction. The 
 flourishing cities of the south of Europe have not now 
 to protect themselves against Gauls, Huns, Goths, 
 Visigoths, Allobroges, Belgae, Quadi, Marcomanni, or 
 other barbarians, who as naturally rushed upon the 
 nearest community that was less uncivilized than 
 themselves, as cold air rushes into a rarefied atmo- 
 sphere. The Gauls and the Belgae and the Allobroges 
 have flourishing cities of their own. Except in few
 
 WAR. 65 
 
 instances, aggression is not attempted now with the 
 thought of permanent occupation — at least in Europe.* 
 We are becoming a little too old and too wise for that. 
 
 DOES WAR SUPPORT WAR. 
 
 But you will say that the proposed occupation of 
 the conquered territory is but one motive out of the 
 many that have led to wars. This objection is quite 
 just. I will, therefore, now endeavour to dispose of 
 another motive, — namely, the hope of spoil. 
 
 There have been a few occasions in the world, and 
 only a few, when this motive, the hope of spoil, has 
 been justified by the result, and when the spoil has 
 paid the expenses of the war. When a barbarian 
 horde of Huns, or Visigoths, or Tartars, hurrying from 
 a land where gold was rare and riches of all kind 
 inaccessible, came down upon a fertile country, paid 
 no expenses as they went along (having never heard 
 
 * Neither can I admit that, as regards India, our extension 
 into Oude and the Punjaub are cases in point on the other side. 
 A conquest, once begun, is likely to continue until what may be 
 fairly called the natural limits of the conquest are readied. If 
 all India had remained unconquered until now, the British would 
 not, I imagine, think of commencing conquest there, for the sake 
 of occupation. 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Scries.] E
 
 66 FKIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 of such a thing as a military chest), sacked flourishing 
 cities, and returned to their barbarian homes enriched 
 with spoil of all kinds, there was at least an appear- 
 ance of success, as far as spoil was concerned. The 
 barbarian, when he displayed to his astonished wife 
 and children cups of gold and dishes of silver, and 
 when he decked out his beloved with precious stones, 
 seemed to have gained something by his foray. I say 
 " seemed," because perhaps it would have been better 
 even for him to have stayed at home and cultivated 
 his land or looked after his cattle. 
 
 "When again European armies took the rich cities 
 of Mexico and Peru, the spoil was such as might well 
 make spoil a considerable motive for warfare. 
 
 It is probable, too, that the expenses of our first 
 war in China were compensated by the Sycee silver 
 we cormpelled the Chinese to pay us : it is more than 
 probable that the expenses of the French revolutionary 
 armies in Italy, under Buonaparte, were provided for 
 by " contributions " from the Italian states.* 
 
 * As an instance of the requisitions made by the French 
 " liberating " army in Italy, I subjoin the following "Conditions 
 of the Armistice concluded between the General-in-Chief of the 
 Army of Italy and Mods. Frederic, Commander of Est, Pleni- 
 potentiary of the I Juke of Modena. 
 
 " The General-in-Chief of the army of Italy grants to the
 
 WAR. 67 
 
 But, as a general rule, in the present time, when 
 armies have to pay their way, and when money knows 
 so well how to make itself scarce upon the first rumour 
 of its being about to be seized upon by force — in an 
 age when swindling may pay, but robbery cannot — no 
 rational man will contend that the movements of 
 armies are in the least degree likely to be paid for by 
 any spoil which it is allowable for them to take. 
 That motive, therefore, unless there is a return to 
 barbarism, is effectually disposed of. 
 
 Duke of Modena an Armistice, in order to give him time to send 
 to Paris for the purpose of obtaining from the Executive Direc- 
 tory a Definite Peace, on the following terms, to which Mons. 
 Frederic, Commander of Est, and Plenipotentiary of Mons. the 
 Duke of Modena, submits, and which he promises to fulfil ; viz. 
 
 " 1st. The Duke of Modena shall pay to the French Republic 
 the sum of 7,500,000 livres, French money, of which three mil- 
 lions shall be immediately deposited in the chest of the Pay- 
 master of the Army ; two millions within the space of fifteen 
 days in the hands of Mons. Balbi, Banker of the Republic at 
 Genoa ; and two millions five hundred thousand livres in the 
 hands of the same banker at Genoa, within the space of a month. 
 
 "2. The Duke of Modena shall furnish 2,500,000 livres in 
 provisions, powder, and other military stores at the choice of 
 the General-in-Chief, who shall likewise fix the periods and 
 places, when and where the provisions shall be furnished. 
 
 "3. The Duke of Modena shall deliver up twenty paintings, 
 taken from his gallery or his dominions, to be selected by persons 
 nominated for that purpose." — Original Journals of the Eighteen 
 Campaigns of A T apoleon Buonaparte, vol. i. p. 31. London. 
 Xo date.
 
 6S FA'IEXDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 WARS OF OPINION". 
 
 We come now to wars of opinion. In this respect 
 also the motive is fast dying away from the minds of 
 men. It is not that bigotry is by any means extinct, 
 but that a great many men have discovered that you 
 cannot propagate opinions securely by means of force. 
 Moreover, the world of opinion, in the last century or 
 two, has become divided into so many sections, that 
 it is difficult to array them one against another in 
 battle. When all Europe was distinctly marked off 
 into Protestant and Catholic, you might bring these 
 two great sections face to face in hostile array ; but 
 now, when there are so many shades of opinion in 
 religious matters, and, consequently, so many different 
 sections of persons anxious for toleration, and fearful 
 lest the party to which they nominally belong should 
 get the upper hand and oppress them, a thousand 
 hindrances would be found in the way of getting up a 
 great war upon religious opinion. The same argu- 
 ment would apply to any other matter dependent 
 upon opinion. 
 
 Then again, from whatever cause, the doctrine of 
 non-interference as regards the domestic concerns of 
 other states has become largely prevalent in modern 
 times.
 
 WAR. 69 
 
 Ellesmere. Forgive me for interrupting, but what I am 
 anxious to say will never come in so well as at this point 
 of the discourse. You are disposing, Milverton, of various 
 motives for war, but pray do not leave out of your con- 
 sideration one which may appear ever so absurd, but 
 is nevertheless a most important motive to deal with. 
 Which is the stronger ? That is a question pregnant 
 with battle. You have a herd of bulls : they might enjoy 
 their pasture comfortably together ; there is plenty of 
 herbage for all, but that important question, which is the 
 strongest or the fiercest, must be settled first. You have 
 a mob of boys : the same question has to be decided. 
 Walter was only the other day telling me that Higgins 
 was the " cock of the school," but that Johnson was very 
 near him, and very ambitious to take his place, and that 
 both Higgins and Johnson avoided tarts, and circum- 
 scribed themselves in puddings, in order to keep them- 
 selves in good training order. You may laugh, but this 
 abstinence from tarts quite corresponds with the ready 
 acceptance of taxes amongst us grown-np people for the 
 purposes of war. Indeed I do not know but that the 
 abstinence from tarts is not the greater sacrifice of 
 the two. Man nature is the same as boy nature, and I 
 do not see how you will dispose of this motive — the long- 
 ing to be first of two rivals — as glibly as you have dis- 
 posed of other motives, which certainly have rather tended 
 to become effete as the world has grown older. 
 
 Milverton. Thanks for the interruption, which was 
 well-timed. I had not forgotten the powerful motive 
 which you have so humorously brought before us. Nay 
 further, I admit that there are several motives for war, or
 
 70 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 at least for the maintenance of effective military force, 
 which are by no means dead in men's minds. Nations 
 have still many objects which they are anxious to further, 
 if not by force, at least by the show of force, and which 
 objects are really worthy of considerable sacrifices being 
 made to attain them. I now return to my own line of 
 argument. 
 
 THE FRAMEWORK FOR WARFARE. 
 
 The main question, and that to which the attention 
 of statesmen, financiers, engineers, and other men of 
 scientific skill should be directed, is this. They 
 would say, we detest war : we have no notion of a 
 profitable or justifiable war for the purpose of 
 occupying a conquered territory, of gaining spoil, or 
 of propagating opinion : but we must do something 
 to maintain the sway we have gained, to protect 
 our colonies until they can protect and rule them- 
 selves, to preserve commercial independence, to pre- 
 vent the strong from persecuting the weak, and to 
 cause that the great highway of the sea should be 
 traversed without interruption except of a legitimate 
 kind. For these purposes it is not necessary to be 
 always going to war, but it may be requisite to 
 maintain effectively the means of going to war. We
 
 WAR. 71 
 
 want always to our hand a something which shall 
 exactly represent the potential force of our nation ; 
 and moveover, it must be a representative which 
 can, at short notice, be turned into the thing it 
 represents. That is the scientific problem before 
 them. As in a good system of currency you use 
 for daily purposes but a small portion of the precious 
 metals, having a representative of them which can at 
 short notice be exchanged for the metals themselves, 
 so the representative of a nation's force should be 
 something which adequately represents it, and which 
 can without much delay be converted into that force. 
 The use of too much gold for daily purposes is simply 
 waste. The use of too many soldiers and of too 
 many stores is also simply waste. And the problem 
 remains, how to maintain potentially the requisite 
 effective force. All this may seem very clear and 
 undeniable, almost entering into the regions of truism ; 
 but 1 doubt whether, simple as the truth is, it is often 
 clearly recognised by statesmen, and clearly put before 
 legislative assemblies. Mark you, such a problem will 
 not be solved by indiscriminate saving. Expenses 
 would have to be increased in some directions ; 
 though, as I believe, they might be greatly dimi- 
 nished in others ; and I must admit that the problem 
 though easy enough to state, is exceeding difficult
 
 72 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 to solve, when you have to apply it to very nume- 
 rous and very complicated details. Still there it is 
 before us, and an attempt at solution must always 
 be made. 
 
 MISERIES OF WAR. 
 
 It seems but a trite subject to dwell upon, the 
 miseries of war and conquest ; but really the extent of 
 woe which history discloses is something portentous, 
 and should occasionally be brought back to our 
 minds. A single page which you read coldly and 
 calmly through — a dull one perhaps, hurried over and 
 soon forgotten — often contains the record of an 
 amount of misery which must have touched a hundred 
 thousand hearts, and an amount of destruction which 
 must have called for the labour of a generation of 
 hardworking men in replacement and reconstruction. 
 The more we extend our researches the more we are 
 impressed by the extent and penetrating nature of this 
 misery and destruction. Ofttimes, after following the 
 regular blood-stained tramp of history, Babylonian, 
 Assyrian, Median, Persian, — the wars of those bitter 
 little Greek states — the formation of the Macedonian 
 empire — the dissolution of that empire — the over-
 
 WAR. 73 
 
 whelming movement of the remorseless Roman, 
 crushing down all nations under his feet — the irrup- 
 tion of countless hordes of barbarians, with their 
 Attilas, and afterwards their Timours and Ghengis 
 Khans— the endless small bickerings, bathed in blood, 
 of counts and dukes, and roitelets, Merovingian, 
 Carlovingian, and Capetian — the grand and foolish 
 and pre-eminently bloodthirsty Crusades — the fierce 
 disputes of pope and emperor and antipope — 
 desolating religious wars, perhaps of thirty years' 
 endurance — the hideous conquest of the New World, 
 and the steady business-like wars of aggression and 
 succession and annexation — the student thinks he 
 knows something about the wreck and ruin which the 
 quarrelsomeness of mankind has produced upon the 
 earth. But then, deviating some day from the usual 
 course of history, he comes upon the records of some 
 corner of the world, which he supposed to have been 
 neglected by the demon of discord, and finds that 
 there, too, there have been immense, continuous, and 
 bloodthirsty wars, and what they call splendid achieve- 
 ments of all kinds • not hitherto much written about, 
 because the names are hard and the provinces 
 obscure, but which have not been neglected from any 
 deficiency of atrocity, — until at last the wearied 
 student begins to think that the surface of the earth,
 
 74 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 if rightly analysed, would prove one ensanguined 
 mass of buried ruin. 
 
 Now. I ask, has nothing been gained by the study 
 of all these records ? It sometimes seems as if there 
 had not, and as if mankind were ready, now as ever, 
 to rush, upon the smallest provocation, into the 
 accustomed track of deliberate carnage and certain 
 desolation. 
 
 A more instructive course of reading could hardly 
 be laid down for a student of history than his taking 
 the records of some considerable town, and seeing the 
 evils it had suffered from its foundation to the present 
 day by wars and sieges. A good town to choose 
 would be the most ancient town in Europe— Padua. 
 Let the student see and consider the injuries that 
 Padua has received from the bellicose disposition of 
 the world. It is not taking an extreme case ; for 
 there is Padua, visible on the face of the earth, after 
 all that it has suffered : whereas, of how many once 
 flourishing towns may it be said that they now only 
 furnish disputes to rival antiquaries, who do battle 
 about the sites of these towns ; which, in their utter 
 destruction, afford a grand field for learned argument 
 — and final doubt.
 
 WAR. 75 
 
 NATIONAL DEBTS J THEIR CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 If the wars between great countries did but end like 
 
 a quarrel handsomely fought out between two common 
 
 men, where there is a great noise, some severe blows 
 
 given and taken, and a little blood-letting on both 
 
 sides, with hearty friendship afterwards, these wars, 
 
 though horrible enough, would still be much less 
 
 mischievous than they are. But a war combines the 
 
 evils not only of a fight but of a disastrous law-suit. 
 
 When the glory is gained or the defeat endured, there 
 
 is still the reckoning to pay. And what a reckoning ! 
 
 I know what may be said in favour of National Debts, 
 
 and what may be urged in mitigation of the evils they 
 
 cause. But the National Debts of most European 
 
 States have long passed the limits of any usefulness, 
 
 (if such a thing there be as useful indebtedness,) and 
 
 have become onerous burdens, anxiously regarded by 
 
 all thoughtful people who care for the welfare of their 
 
 respective countries. What a sum it is that England, 
 
 for instance, has to provide each year for the interest 
 
 upon her debt, before she has a penny to spend upon 
 
 internal administration. Not far from thirty millions 
 
 of money. Consider how the internal administration 
 
 is cramped and hindered — 
 
 " By that eternal want of pence 
 Which vexes public men."
 
 7 6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 It is not only that art, science, and literature receive 
 the shabbiest aid from the public ; but I am sure it will 
 be within the cognizance of many persons acquainted 
 with government that even such a small sum as seven 
 or eight hundred pounds might often be most judi- 
 ciously expended in some public department (perhaps 
 in the way of some experiment), and is not asked 
 for, or is refused, because the Treasury must look 
 narrowly, not to say meanly, to the expenditure of 
 every farthing of the public money. 
 
 See, moreover, what an immense advantage is to be 
 gained by the remission of taxes when we can afford 
 to remit them : — how some branch of home manufac- 
 ture which had been smitten and stunted by taxation, 
 springs up into life * when it is even but partially 
 relieved of its oppressing burden. Consider, too, 
 how public works of the first utility languish for want 
 of funds, and how the Government is seldom able to 
 exercise what foresight it may possess, in making 
 purchases that would be of signal service to the 
 people, especially to the poor. To give but one 
 instance ; what an excellent investment it would be 
 for the public, if Government were able to purchase 
 
 * I might refer to the manufactures of glass and stained papers 
 as instances of the great benefit that has arisen from the remis- 
 sion of taxation.
 
 WAR. 77 
 
 large vacant spots of ground in and about great towns, 
 and to devote these spaces to public purposes : the best 
 purpose, perhaps, being to leave them unbuilt upon. 
 It is, however, but easy work to show the mischief of 
 large National Debts : it is not so easy to make people 
 think of this mischief when they are eager for war, and 
 before the reckoning has come in for them to pay. 
 
 But perhaps a still greater evil arising from war 
 than even destruction of life, desolation of territory, 
 and increase of taxation, lies in the general distraction 
 of mind which it occasions throughout society, and the 
 stop which it assuredly puts for a time to human pro- 
 gress. Here are we just beginning to understand some- 
 thing about the most potent elements in the universe, 
 such as heat, light, and electricity ; just beginning to 
 investigate the laws of disease among town populations, 
 and the modes of mitigating it ; just beginning to enter 
 upon a bold career of scientific husbandry ; just begin- 
 ning to endeavour that the poor should live in a state 
 of less abject squalidity than that in which they have 
 heretofore lived : and all our attention is to be diverted 
 from these great objects to modes of attack and defence, 
 and our minds to be confused by the noise of drums 
 and trumpets. Surely this is a great evil, and never 
 greater than at the present time of hope and promise.
 
 7S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 WHO IS BENEFITED BY WAR. 
 
 On the other hand, it will, I know, be contended 
 that war is not all loss. 
 
 " Afaltis utile bellum" is a well-known saying, and 
 there is, unfortunately, some truth in these unpleasant 
 words. But has any one numbered the millions to 
 whom peace is useful ? Let us enter into reckonings 
 upon this matter. War may be useful to contractors, 
 armourers, the population of some seaport towns and 
 arsenals, occasionally to certain classes of shipowners 
 and merchants, and generally to those through whose 
 hands the money raised for war passes. But how 
 very small a proportion do these people bear to the 
 great bulk of the population ? How insignificant and 
 transient are their interests compared with those of 
 the mass of the people — a mere vanishing quantity, 
 as the mathematician would say. We may also admit 
 that war raises the prices of provisions. Is that a 
 benefit to the many ? It is not even a benefit, in the 
 long run, to the producer, whose sure gains are based 
 upon the gradual improvement and permanent well- 
 being of the great masses of the people. That the 
 poorer classes should be able to buy a little more 
 bread, a little more meat, and be able to house and
 
 WAR. 79 
 
 clothe themselves a little better, is of far more import 
 ance to the land-owner, the corn-grower, the manu- 
 facturer, and the merchant, than any fitful gains that 
 may be got out of the disordered state of things which 
 war inevitably produces. 
 
 But to place the question on much broader grounds. 
 In every country, Great Britain being by no means an 
 exception, an immense amount of reproductive work 
 requires to be done, in addition to that which is 
 already going on. Can anybody contend that it is for 
 the general interest that this reproductive work should 
 be indefinitely deferred, and the most wasteful work 
 that can be imagined, i.e., active warfare, be under- 
 taken in its stead ? Men's energies are limited, and 
 the two things, internal improvement and external 
 outlay for war, cannot go on together. Who would 
 not wish to have seen those seventy millions of 
 money lately expended in the Russian war, appro- 
 priated instead to reproductive work at home ; 
 especially when we find it an exceeding difficulty 
 in our greatest city to obtain three millions for the 
 most urgent public purposes ? 
 
 I suspect that few people thoroughly believe, or at 
 least realize to themselves, the fact that those seventy 
 millions have been spent in war, and that the Queen's 
 subjects, far and near, are so much the poorer, for
 
 So FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 that money having been so laid out, and would have 
 been so much the richer, and more too, if it had been 
 expended in industrial pursuits.* 
 
 People read of credits voted, year by year, for 
 millions of money, of issues of Exchequer bills, of 
 certain great financiers attending at the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer's office, and as they read these 
 important announcements, they almost think that the 
 expenditure is in some mysterious way provided for by 
 words and paper and certain financial jugglery. They 
 do not fully comprehend the fact that so much solid 
 capital has gone from them and their heirs for ever. 
 
 * I sent this essay of Milverton's, while it was in type, to a 
 well-known statesman of long standing in her Majesty's councils, 
 with whom I had become acquainted when at college. The 
 truth is, I was afraid lest Milverton should have been led into 
 
 geration upon some of the above points. This statesman, 
 however, instead of restraining the argument, carries it further. 
 These are his words in a note upon the above passage : — 
 
 " We raised a Parliamentary loan of 8.000,000/. for India 
 
 year, and a further sum of 12,000,000/., in England and 
 India, will probably be required during the present session. 
 How different would have been the result if these immense sums 
 could have been employed in growing the raw materials for our 
 manufactures in the valley of the Ganges, raising there the wages 
 of the ryot and facilitating the payments of the landed proprietors 
 in India, extending the manufacturing and commercial industry 
 ol Lancashire and of the West Riding, thus benefiting simulta- 
 neously the Eastern and Western dominions of our Queen."
 
 WAR. 8 1 
 
 Then, again, taxation is a subtle thing, and you have 
 to follow it into all its ramifications before you discover 
 and rightly appreciate the mischief which it does to 
 you and your descendants, when the bulk of the 
 money raised by that taxation has been spent unpro- 
 ductively. To ensure good internal administration, 
 to maintain such a readiness for war as may prevent 
 war, or such as may make war, when it comes 
 suddenly, less expensive — no money judiciously spent 
 can be considered to be wasted. But all beyond 
 that is pure waste ; if not for the few, at least for 
 the great mass of the people, whose interests every 
 statesman is bound to consult first. There is then, I 
 contend, no argument for war to be found in the fact 
 that it may be useful to some private persons, or to 
 some few classes of the community. 
 
 Amongst the greatest curses attendant upon Euro- 
 pean wars, as they affect this country, are foreign 
 loans. We cannot prevent money going where it 
 pleases. It is one of the freest of earthly things. It 
 will not be besieged, or impressed, or severely con- 
 trolled in any way. Still it is well to note the mischief 
 that occurs from its free movement in any particular 
 direction. Every improving man, every person who 
 is striving to produce more and more out of land, or 
 by manufactures, is to a certain extent stayed ami 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] F
 
 82 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 hindered by these foreign loans. They must make 
 money dearer for him. If this is not a great national 
 evil, it would be difficult to say what is. 
 
 When I am asked : — " But what plan do you 
 propose for reducing the military establishments of 
 Europe ? " I cannot say that I have any plan, or 
 that I believe that any one else has. But we may 
 gradually induce such a state of feeling and of opinion, 
 as would, almost unobservedly, lead to that reduction. 
 Men, I know, are seldom satisfied with these unde- 
 fined and distant hopes. The human mind delights 
 in specifics, and is apt to believe that for every evil 
 there is a specific remedy. If something hitherto 
 unknown were found out, there would, they are apt 
 to think, be no more wars. But there is no specific, 
 I fear, to be found out for persuading potentates to 
 disband armies; and there is always the pretext, and 
 often the good excuse, for a potentate, that he cannot 
 disband any portion of his army while a neighbouring 
 potentate maintains his in full force. And who is to 
 begin the good work ? Happy indeed would it be 
 for mankind if the work were of a nature that could 
 be left to obscure students to settle. All that they can 
 do is to point out the nature and extent of the evil, 
 and to dwell upon it without exaggerating it; to
 
 WAR. 83 
 
 illustrate from the rich resources of history the mag- 
 nitude of the evil; to prophesy disaster from it when 
 they can honestly do so ; and to show that its con- 
 sequences are such as in the long run to promote the 
 destruction, rather than the stability, of empires. If 
 they can sow any of this good seed they must leave 
 it to fructify in the minds of other men of their own 
 time, and in the minds of other men of future gene- 
 rations. For this is not an evil that will be cured in a 
 day. 
 
 HINDRANCES TO WAR. 
 
 As one way of hindering war, we should not 
 hesitate to put before the masters of mankind the 
 sternest and truest words as regards their responsi- 
 bilities in this matter. 
 
 It is to be doubted whether any powerful and 
 governing person ever thinks — whether any such 
 person has ever thought — with sufficient gravity and 
 just terror of the tremendous responsibility he incurs 
 in beginning or continuing war. Men are not without 
 remorse, without terrible remorse, for their private 
 sins. But how many of these sins are committed in 
 moments of passion, under hideous temptations, from 
 dire pressure of circumstances, when the actors are 
 goaded by fear, anger, envy, want, jealousy, or other
 
 S4 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 imperative scourges of the human soul. War is 
 mostly a matter of calculation and of judgment. It is 
 not, at least in modern times, a hasty affair. The 
 promoter of war has, in general, plenty of time to 
 reconsider, with all due sobriety, the resolve which he 
 may have made in anger, or in the intoxication of 
 vain-glory. The world is old enough now to have 
 furnished sufficient examples even to the least literate 
 of monarchs, generals, or statesmen, of wars which 
 have terminated with signal success apparently, i.e., as 
 far as the mere war was concerned, but with utter 
 failure as far as the purposes were concerned, for 
 which the war was really undertaken. The coveted 
 territory is not added, or, if added, is found to be a 
 burden rather than a gain ; the ally to please whom 
 the war was begun, is alienated, rather than made 
 grateful ; the prestige of power and sagacity is 
 damaged rather than augmented ; the home govern- 
 ment is rendered more difficult rather than less so, 
 now that the war has come to a conclusion. These 
 results do not always happen ; but they have 
 happened with sufficient frequency to make the 
 boldest man, if he have any wisdom corresponding 
 'with his boldness, pause and ponder before he under- 
 takes an enterprise which all history has pronounced 
 to be so dubious in its issues as war. I put aside the
 
 WAR. 85 
 
 ugly questions which such a man should ask himself; 
 whether the result, if gained, can compensate for the 
 enormous amount of human suffering which it must 
 demand, and whether he, the main promoter of the 
 war, is in the eyes of God or man justified in 
 incurring the awful hazard of producing calamities 
 of which, in this world, he has often, personally, to 
 endure so small a share. Taking all these things into 
 consideration, it may well, I repeat, be doubted 
 whether any conqueror, or warlike statesman, or 
 military monarch, has ever done his conscientious 
 scruples sufficient justice before he has come to the 
 dread resolve of commencing a war, the burden of 
 which commencement is to be upon his soul for ever. 
 Letter be the maimed soldier, the ruined peasant, the 
 bayoneted child, the dishonoured mother, — better 
 endure the whole misery of a disastrous campaign, 
 collected and heaped upon one person, if such a 
 thing could be, — than have the fatal responsibility 
 which lies upon that man who, in wantonness, or 
 selfishness, or even from reckless miscalculation, has 
 been the main promoter of a war that might have been 
 avoided. 
 
 I have used advisedly the words "the main 
 promoter of a war," because, even with powerful, war-
 
 86 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 like, and self-willed monarchs, there might be few wars 
 if their councillors were like the vizier of the Persian 
 king, Nushiravan. 
 
 The courser of this king had borne him, when 
 hunting, far away from the crowd of his courtiers, and 
 his vizier alone kept up with him, and rode by his 
 side. They came upon a desolate village. Two 
 birds there were conferring together in song, "and 
 their notes were more contracted than the heart of the 
 king." 
 
 "What is this twittering'?" said the monarch. 
 
 " Oh, light of the earth," replied the vizier, " I would 
 tell, if the king would be a learner by it. 
 
 " This bird gave in marriage, yesterday, his daughter 
 to that bird, who demands, early in the morning, the 
 bridal fortune : saying, ' This deserted village thou 
 wilt give up to us ; and so many besides thou wilt 
 make over to us.' 
 
 "The other bird replies, 'Depart from this pro- 
 posal : see the injustice of Nushiravan ; and go; be 
 not anxious. If the king be such, in no long time, for 
 this one desolate village, I will give thee a hundred 
 thousand.' " 
 
 The king smote his head with his hand, and wept. 
 " See my tyranny," he exclaimed, " that I make a 
 seat for owls where there should be only tame birds.
 
 WAR. 87 
 
 " The Creator gave me a kingdom to the intent 
 that I should not do that which can produce no good. 
 I, whose brass they have besmeared with gold [his 
 courtiers' flattery], am doing those acts which he has 
 not ordered." 
 
 And the monarch's anguish was so keen, and his 
 loud cries of self-reproach were so warm, " that by his 
 breath the shoes of his horse were softened." 
 
 He rode back to the station of his troops, and his 
 face was not as the face of the king Nushiravan. 
 " The scent of his lenity reached throughout his 
 whole empire." Thenceforward he diffused justice and 
 trampled on iniquity, and until his last breath he de- 
 parted not from these good courses.* 
 
 But there are few viziers like the vizier of Nushi- 
 ravan ; and the despotic monarch seldom finds one 
 by his side who can interpret the twittering of birds 
 so wisely, and who dares to rebuke with boldness the 
 man who sustains him in power and emolument. 
 
 TEMPTATION AFFORDED BY LARGE STANDING ARMIES. 
 
 As some excuse for monarchs, we must own that 
 the natural disposition of mankind is to make use of 
 
 * See the translation of this fable of the poet Nizami, in Sir 
 Wm, Jones's Works, vol. iv. p. 387. London, 1S70.
 
 SS FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 whatever they possess, whether it be advisable to use 
 it or not. The man who has the gift of eloquence 
 cannot bear an enforced silence, however injurious to 
 himself it may be for him to speak out, 
 
 " Et sua mortifera est facundia." 
 
 The man who has the rare faculty of exquisite expres- 
 sion will write books, though the writing of books is, 
 as some think, the most deplorable occupation, except 
 grinding metals or working in a coal-pit, that has yet 
 been invented by human beings. Something, how- 
 ever, has to be said for this use of certain faculties, 
 as there is generally behind these faculties a force and 
 power which require to be used. Nature seldom 
 makes such incomplete beings as those would be who 
 had a wonderful power of expression, but yet had 
 nothing to express. The danger from an injudicious 
 use of power is much greater when the power is 
 arrived at by accident, and is not by any means 
 innate. Hence the man who has a half a million of 
 soldiers to play with is grievously tempted to use 
 them, whether the use be wise or not. You might 
 nearly as well trust a child with a large whip, and 
 expect him not to slash about with it in a most 
 inconsiderate manner, as to expect a man who has at 
 his command immense armies (perhaps an hereditary
 
 WAR. S 9 
 
 acquisition) not to do something with them, however 
 uncalled-for that something may be. Hence in all 
 states the wholesome dread that there should always 
 be of large standing armies being maintained upon 
 any pretext whatever. This is the great merit 
 of constitutional government, that, with a view to 
 home affairs, it naturally has a wise jealousy of the 
 existence of such armies. Constitutional governments 
 are not much more averse to foreign war than 
 despotic governments are ; but fortunately the means 
 for immediate warfare are never so ready to their 
 hands. 
 
 It may be noticed that these large standing armies 
 are comparatively a modern invention. When barons 
 and their retainers were summoned by the tenure of 
 feudal service to assist their monarchs in a foolish 
 war, if they chose to go, they went, and pillaged, and 
 devastated ; but when they came back, and were dis- 
 banded, the country had not to bear the expense 
 of a standing army, and the barons returned to their 
 private affairs, perhaps to carry on feuds with one 
 another (their private business), and the state was 
 not exhausted by maintaining men at arms for the 
 especial purposes of monarchs.
 
 90 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 THE INVADING NATION POSSIBLY THE GREATER 
 SUFFERER. 
 
 There is a very curious result of our partial advance 
 in civilization as regards its influence on the effects of 
 war, to which I beg to call your especial attention. 
 It is this : that, comparing modern times with ancient 
 the nation sending out armaments often suffers now 
 proportionately more than the nation which has to 
 bear the war in its own territory. To understand this 
 fully, we must look into details. Follow in imagina- 
 tion the track of an English army commanded by the 
 late Duke of Wellington. It pays' its way ; private 
 property is strictly protected, as far at least as the 
 commander-in-chief and his officers can protect it — we 
 all know how the Duke ordered capital punishment 
 on one occasion for a very trifling theft ; — and, in 
 general, the track of that army is not marked by any 
 deep indents of destruction, by any at least which the 
 industry of a year or two may not easily efface. Now, 
 take the other side of the question. The nation that 
 provides and sends out the invading army has become 
 more responsible, less inclined to injure wantonly, 
 and more taxable, as civilization has advanced j and, 
 since it may cost more to send out forces than to 
 receive the shock of them, the invaders may ultimately
 
 WAR. 91 
 
 suffer far more than the invaded. To this day I can 
 clearly trace, in the poor habitations around me in the 
 country, the effects of Pitt's war taxes ; and it is not too 
 much to say that many a fever distinctly correspond- 
 ing with the expensive movements of British armies 
 abroad, is now ravaging our English cottage homes.* 
 The above may appear far-fetched and over subtle ; 
 but it is not so. The evils of warfare as they tell 
 upon home comfort are disguised, and pass under 
 other names, but they are not on that account the 
 less caused by war ; and it must be admitted that 
 until civilization reaches that point when costly arma- 
 ments and the maintenance of large standing armies 
 are thoroughly discouraged — are discouraged, indeed, 
 as much as cruelty and needless destruction in carry- 
 ing on warfare — these disguised evils will continue to 
 bear an increasing disproportion to the more manifest 
 and therefore more controllable miseries of war. 
 
 THE MISCHIEF OF AN ARMED PEACE. 
 
 After what I have said of the evils of actual warfare, 
 you cannot charge me with underrating them. But I 
 
 * The results of the excise duty on bricks, and of the window- 
 tax, will be visible for another century in the ill-constructed and 
 fever-fostering tenements of our lower classes.
 
 92 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 really do believe that the mischief, if not the misery, 
 of an armed peace, is more to be apprehended. 
 This sword hanging over us takes somewhat of the 
 savour out of every banquet. A great war ended, 
 there is some chance of disbandment : and for the 
 masses of mankind it is the maintenance of large 
 armies, and not the war itself, that may prove the 
 greatest evil ; causing general depression, augment- 
 ing taxation, hindering trade, and circumscribing 
 adventure — moreover perpetrating all this mischief 
 steadily, as a matter of course, that attracts, com- 
 paratively, but little notice. There is no end to the 
 increase of armies ; it goes on silently from year to 
 year, and every year valuable materials of all kinds 
 are used up in a way which will soon go out of fashion. 
 We find it difficult enough, in northern climes, to 
 provide warmth for our poor people : think of the 
 coals used for war steamers even in times of peace. 
 In fine, it really becomes a question whether we had 
 better not have a war once in every ten years, which 
 might lead to some considerable disbandment, than a 
 peace full of daily alarms which gives good reason for 
 a constant increase of armies, and a constant addition 
 of expenditure for warlike purposes.
 
 WAR. 93 
 
 HOW GREAT CHANGES IN OPINION TAKE PLACE. 
 
 In what I am going to say now, you may think that 
 I am taking you through devious paths ; but you must 
 believe that they will lead up to an important branch 
 of the subject : as they certainly will do. 
 
 How like we are to our fathers ! — in the main 
 characteristics of thought, I mean. It is true that 
 much is changed about us physically, but it is not 
 such a change as affects the habits of thinking. Take 
 the rapidity of locomotion, for instance. These days 
 of steam and electricity seem certainly very different 
 from the time when, as boys, we used to be taken, on 
 the first of May, to see the mail coaches turn out 
 from the Post Office in all their new gear, and with 
 all their fine array. And what a pretty sight, by the 
 way, it was ; one, I am sure, which the boy who had 
 once seen it would never forget. But observe, the 
 ideas of men are not the least changed upon the main 
 subject. They saw the advantages of swift loco- 
 motion ; they exceedingly desired that swiftness ; and 
 though there may have been some surprise as to the 
 new means adopted for attaining that desired end, 
 there was not the slightest radical change of thought 
 engendered in the matter. The same course of argu- 
 ment might be applied to many other instances.
 
 94 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Painless operations in surgery, which seem to me the 
 greatest invention of modern times, are but a follow- 
 ing out of the skilful appliances which had long been 
 brought to bear upon the same end. If we take 
 literature, which is no doubt an admirable reflex of 
 the current thought of men, we shall see how little 
 change there is in the nature of that current. The 
 conversational wit of our day, the best kind of that 
 wit, differs very little from that of Selwyn, or of 
 Jekyll : the best kind of writing, from that of Swift, 
 Addison, Bolingbroke, and Temple. Nay, to go 
 further back, how closely we are related in habits 
 of thought and the ways of looking at anything to 
 the great writers of Elizabeth's time. Bacon's words 
 have occasionally an antique show about them, but 
 the current of thought is for the most part such as 
 we think now, or as we incline to think the moment 
 we have heard it. Further back even, and also in 
 different countries, there is the same similarity to 
 modern thought. Charles the Fifth and his ministers 
 are very like modern statesmen in the essential 
 elements of their ways of thinking. But, as you go 
 back, there does come a time in history when this 
 similarity is considerably broken up and diversified ; 
 and I contend that the change does not take place 
 gradually, but, as it were, per saltum.
 
 WAR. 
 
 95 
 
 If, for example, you take the beginning of the 
 fifteenth century, this suddenness of change will be 
 visible. I could not illustrate my position better 
 than by bringing such a work as Monstrelet's Chronicle 
 before you. That work commences in the year 1400. 
 Now, as you probably will not read Monstrelet, and 
 certainly cannot read him now, I will give you an 
 instance of what I mean. Very early in the Clironide 
 there is an account, amongst others which resemble 
 it, of a general challenge given by the Seneschal 
 of Hainault.* 
 
 "To all knights and esquires, gentlemen of name and 
 arms, without reproach, I, Jean de Verchin, Seneschal 
 of Hainault, make known that with the aid of God, of our 
 Lady, of my Lord St. George, and of the lady of my affec- 
 tions, I intend being at Coucy the first Sunday of August 
 next ensuing, unless prevented by lawful and urgent busi- 
 ness, ready on the morrow to make trial of the arms here- 
 after mentioned, in the presence of my most redoubted 
 lord, the Duke of Orleans, who has granted me permission 
 to hold the meeting at the above place. 
 
 "From respect to the gentleman [he alludes to the 
 person who may accept the challenge], and to afford him 
 more pleasure for having had the goodness to accept my 
 invitation, I promise to engage him promptly on foot 
 
 * I need hardly remark that I have made this quotation 
 myself : Milverton merely gave us a sketch of the passage. [D.]
 
 96 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 unless bodily prevented, without either of us taking off 
 any part of the armour which we had worn in our assault 
 on horseback : we may, however, change our visors, and 
 lengthen the plates of our armour according to the number 
 of strokes with the sword and dagger, as may be thought 
 proper, when my companion shall have determined to 
 accomplish my deliverance by all these deeds of arms, 
 provided, however, that the number of strokes may be 
 gone through during the day, at such intermissions as I 
 shall point out. 
 
 " Should it happen, after having agreed with a gentle- 
 man to perform these deeds of arms, as we are proceeding 
 toward the judge he had fixed upon, that I should meet 
 another gentleman willing to deliver me, who should 
 n une a judge nearer my direct road than the first, I 
 would in that case perform my trial in arms with him 
 whose judge was the nearest ; and when I had acquitted 
 myself to him, I would then return to accomplish my 
 engagement with the first, unless prevented by any bodily 
 infirmity. 
 
 " That all gentlemen who may incline to deliver me 
 from my vow may know the road I propose to follow, I 
 inform them, that under the will of God, I mean to travel 
 through France to Bordeaux, — thence to the country of 
 Foix, to the kingdoms of Navarre and Castile, to the 
 shrine of my Lord St. James at Compostella. On my 
 return, if it please God, I will pass through the kingdom 
 of Portugal, — thence to Valencia, Arragon, Catalonia,
 
 WAR. 
 
 97 
 
 and Avignon, and recross the kingdom of France, having 
 it understood if I may be permitted to travel through all 
 these countries in security, to perform my vow, excepting 
 the kingdom of France, and the county of Hainault."* 
 
 Here is a total change of thought. Nobody nowa- 
 days has the slightest idea of gathering renown in the 
 way which the Seneschal of Hainault proposed for 
 himself. And to this love of duelling for duelling's 
 sake what a contrast is afforded by modern notions 
 on the same subject, when duelling, even for a good 
 cause, is universally stigmatized, at least amongst us, 
 as something foolish as well as wrong. 
 
 But perhaps a still more striking instance of the 
 change in the ways of thinking, which I fancy I 
 recognize, is to be found in reading the celebrated 
 defence (also chronicled in Monstrelet) made by 
 Master Jean Petit on behalf of the Duke of Burgundy 
 for the acknowledged murder of the Duke of Orleans. 
 The transparent sophistry, the wonderful pedantry, 
 the astonishing audacity with which the orator brings 
 in St. Paul's exhortation to charity, in order to 
 countenance one of the foulest assassinations that 
 ever was committed, make you feel, when you are 
 reading this defence, that you have entered into 
 
 * Monstrelet, chap. viii. 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.]
 
 98 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 a different period of thought from that which 
 characterizes your own times. Also, when you con- 
 sider the immense barbarities which were committed 
 in those times during the long and bloody wars 
 between the French factions of Burgundy and Ar- 
 magnac, and during the contests of the French and 
 Fnglish in the same period, you must admit that 
 there has been since then a great change of thought 
 and feeling in the mode of warfare. 
 
 But, alas ! if you come to that which presses most 
 deeply upon the resources, the comforts, and the 
 well-being of a people — namely, the maintenance of 
 numerous armies in time of peace, you will find very 
 little change of thought or practice. All that change 
 has yet to be introduced. It is no doubt a much 
 more difficult thing to persuade potentates to reduce 
 the number of their armies, than to cause them to 
 become more and more humane in the actual pro- 
 ceedings and practices of warfare. It is easy to 
 perceive the mischief of indiscriminate slaughter : it is 
 not at first sight easy to perceive the full mischief of 
 maintaining larger armies than a country's needs 
 demand, or than its resources will bear. But we may 
 fairly hope that such knowledge will come — perhaps 
 come suddenly rather than gradually, and an ameliora-
 
 WAR. 99 
 
 tion take place in this respect which would astonish 
 those persons who in these days maintain the neces- 
 sity for upholding large armies, as much as it would 
 astonish the seneschals, dukes, counts and vidames of 
 Monstrelet's time to find the small amount of inten- 
 tional barbarity with which war is conducted in our 
 times. In such a great subject as we are considering, 
 where the roots of evil lie so deeply both in human 
 nature and in the present tangled circumstances of 
 Europe, we must have recourse to history to gain 
 admonition and comfort, and to see that in the long 
 course of years changes of thought arise, if not gradu- 
 ally, at least, as I have said, per salt inn, which would 
 seem to any one generation absolutely Utopian, if not 
 impossible. 
 
 RESTRAINTS UPON WARLIKE TENDENCIES. 
 
 In estimating the chances of any restraint being 
 put upon the tendencies to war which still exist in 
 Europe, we must consider how the individual man 
 who may wish to resist these tendencies is placed, and 
 what contrast his position affords to that of a man, 
 similarly minded, who lived in former ages. I am 
 afraid that the contrast will not be so much in favour
 
 ioo FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 of the modern man of peace as might have been anti- 
 cipated. The well-known lines — 
 
 " But war's a game which, were their subjects wise, 
 Kings would not play at," 
 
 are more plausible than true. Consider the difficulties 
 under which the cause of peacefulness labours, in so 
 far as it is to be promoted by private persons. 
 
 As civilization advances, the division of labour 
 becomes more and more exact and well-defined. 
 Each man has enough to do in pursuing his calling 
 or profession. All that happens in the world is, or 
 at least seems to be, of trifling import to him, in 
 comparison with his failure, or success, in that call- 
 ing or profession. He has become part of a great 
 machine, over the main movements of which he has 
 scarcely any direct control. The accomplished 
 surgeon, as well versed perhaps as any man in the 
 miseries and sufferings in war, hears of warlike inten- 
 tions on the part of his government, or of some 
 foreign power, regrets exceedingly to hear of such 
 intentions, but can only give a few of his spare 
 thoughts to the subject, and next to no action to 
 avert the evil, for his profession is one that mostly 
 demands the whole energies of the man. The 
 merchant hears "on 'Change" of wars and rumours 
 of wars, and to few men is war more odious than to
 
 WAR. 101 
 
 the merchant ; but these wars bring to him an 
 increase of anxious thought and of necessity for 
 prudent action in his own immediate affairs. He is, 
 therefore, more than ever absorbed in them ; and, 
 taking society generally, though, as the years proceed, 
 there is less disposition to be warlike in the individual 
 man, and less capability from the division of labour 
 of his being so, there is also less control over war 
 than when each man wore a sword, knew how to use 
 it, and had in some measure the beginnings and the 
 issues of wars in his own hands. In ancient times 
 it was almost impossible for kings to maintain a war 
 which was unpopular with their barons, or even 
 amongst the retainers of those barons. 
 
 So far the modern state of things is unfavourable 
 to a restraint being put upon the warlike tendencies of 
 monarchs. The absence of any great controlling power 
 in the Church is also unfavourable. We must not force t 
 that the Church did on many occasions interfere to 
 prevent war, and that we owe to her influence the 
 existence of that remarkable law in the Middle Asres, 
 called "The Truce of God,"* by which warfare was 
 forbidden during three days of the week. 
 
 * "As the authority of the civil magistrate was found ineffec- 
 tual to remedy this evil, the Church interposed. ... A general
 
 102 FHIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 On the other hand, there are some influences in 
 modern times which give peculiar powers for restraint 
 being put upon war. Men are better able to com- 
 municate their opinions to one another, and to create, 
 with considerable rapidity (for that is the main point) 
 a great change in public opinion. Public opinion 
 also is more potent, and reaches even to thrones with 
 singular facility. 
 
 Again, there is a much greater power of combina- 
 tion than there ever was before, not only amongst 
 people of the same race and country, but throughout 
 the whole civilized world. It is not impossible that 
 great leagues and associations may yet be formed 
 amongst the principal peoples in the world, having 
 
 reconciliation took place ; and a resolution was formed, that no 
 man should in future attack or molest his adversaries during the 
 seasons appropriated for the celebration of the great festivals of 
 the Church, or from the end of Thursday in each week to the 
 beginning of Monday in the week ensuing : the three intervening 
 •lays being considered as particularly holy, Christ's passion 
 having happened on one of those days, and His resurrection on 
 another. This cessation from hostilities was called ' The Truce 
 of Cod ; ' and three complete days, in every week, allowed such 
 a considerable space for the passions of the antagonists to cool, 
 and fur the people to enjoy a respite from the calamities of war, 
 as well as to take measures for their own security, that, if the 
 Truce of God had been strictly observed, it would have gone far 
 towards putting an end to private wars." — Russell's History of 
 Modern Europe, vol. i. p. 380. London, 1818.
 
 WAR. I 03 
 
 fur their object to put a restraint upon the intolerable 
 burdens and miseries of needless wars. 
 
 Upon the whole, though the process of time hag 
 not made everything favourable to the lovers of peace> 
 and though, on the contrary, it has introduced some 
 additional difficulties in stemming the tide of war, it 
 has yet created new and extraordinary powers which 
 may be brought to bear upon the warlike tendencies 
 of monarchs or of nations, and which may ultimately 
 prevail. At any rate there is no ground for abject 
 discouragement in the matter. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest advance that has been made 
 in public opinion of a kind to hinder warfare, is the 
 general opinion in England against going to war with 
 such of our colonies as may be reluctant to continue 
 in association with us, and which are able to shift for 
 themselves. If our feelings were expressed in words, 
 the following would, I imagine, be what we should 
 say : " We are proud to have sent you forth ; we are 
 willing to defend you and to fight for you (we should 
 never desert a colony that held by us); but we decline 
 to fight with you, if you are determined to sever your- 
 selves from us, and have attained sufficient growth to 
 do so." 
 
 Such, I believe, to be, in the main, the opinion of 
 England with regard to her colonies. It were to be
 
 104 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 wished that other nations took a similar view of their 
 dependencies, when those dependencies had proved 
 themselves, for a considerable period of time, unwill- 
 ing to be ruled by the Imperial State which they have 
 been assigned to. If other nations did think so, we 
 should not now * be trembling on the verge of a war 
 that is to settle whether a large part of reluctant Italy 
 is to be governed by a Germanic power, which, even 
 if it succeeds in maintaining its sway over a thoroughly 
 alien race, will only do so by the maintenance of such 
 armies as must be a distress to its other subjects, and 
 an injury to the civilized world — as all large standing 
 armies are. 
 
 I do not maintain that the above is a case at all 
 analogous to that of England and her colonies, but it 
 presents a difficulty which would be solved by a still 
 further advance of public opinion in a direction 
 adverse to war. 
 
 In reply to what I have just urged about the force 
 of opinion, you may say that it does not easily reach 
 a despot's mind. Not easily perhaps, until the 
 opinion becomes pretty general. But if there were a 
 public opinion about war, at all corresponding with 
 
 1859.
 
 WAR. 105 
 
 the opinion of those persons whom I am now address- 
 ing, do you think it would have no weight with war- 
 like monarchs? If a monarch knew, for instance, 
 that there were a great many persons who thought he 
 was doing a very childish and silly thing in going to 
 war, and whojiad a sincere contempt for him because 
 he wasted the resources of his subjects in warlike pre- 
 parations, do you think that these opinions would 
 have no influence upon him ? Why, Haman could 
 not bear the existence of one man, Mordecai, who sat 
 at the king's gate, and did not do honour to Haman. 
 For a man to despise public opinion he must be an 
 extraordinary man, if not a great one — quite great 
 enough to come to the conclusion from his own 
 thinking, and without the influence of others, that 
 needless war is a most sorry employment of his own 
 faculties, and of his kingdom's resources. Once form 
 the requisite public opinion : there is little to be 
 doubted about its potency. 
 
 PROSPECT OF INVASION. 
 
 In speaking of the subject of war, it is natural to 
 think especially of one's cwn country, and, in doing 
 so, to consider that apprehension of invasion which 
 periodically besets the English. It is surely right that
 
 io6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 they should sometimes entertain, and very gravely 
 entertain, this apprehension. But it need not become 
 a bugbear? Let me ask what great nation has not 
 been invaded ? Were not the Greeks invaded by the 
 Persians, the Romans by the Carthaginians, the Swiss 
 by the Burgundians ? and with what result in each 
 case history declares. There would be much calamity 
 — there might (I firmly believe there would) result 
 great honour from our being invaded ; there certainly 
 would be no shame in the mere fact of an invasion ; 
 and the fear of such an event ought not to lead to 
 any needless outlay of money which, to use a good 
 expression of Lord Sydenham's much ridiculed at 
 the time, had better " fructify in the pockets of the 
 people." As to making England, or any other 
 county, impregnable, it is simply impossible in these 
 times; and the same judgment and moderation which 
 it is admitted should be shown in maintaining the 
 means for attack, must not be overstepped in pre- 
 paring the means for defence.* In estimating the 
 chances, it is surely at least nine to one, that the next 
 war that England will have to undertake will be to 
 protect some weak power rather than to defend herself. 
 
 i 
 
 * It may be doubted whether Pitt's Martello towers have 
 proved of any advantage adequate to the expense bestowed upon 
 them.
 
 WAR. 107 
 
 There is another consideration which much alarms 
 even the most thoughtful men, and those who are 
 least likejy to give way to any rash alarm ; and that 
 is, the belief that England is unkindly regarded by 
 most foreign states, and that they would be glad to 
 see her humbled. There is something in this notion ; 
 but not nearly so much, I suspect, as most of the 
 alarmists are inclined to suppose. When it comes to 
 the serious question of whether England is to decline 
 into a second-rate power, most of the kindred nations 
 will be ready to drop any small jealousies. They 
 will ask themselves : — " What have we suffered from 
 the predominance of this great power : what injury 
 has she really done us?" It seems to me that they 
 could not give any answer which would warrant them 
 in regarding her difficulties with any but the gravest 
 apprehension for themselves. 
 
 We have our little quarrels, sometimes rather bitter 
 and disagreeable, with our brethren on the other side 
 of the Atlantic; but I am persuaded that the good 
 and true men in America would never be so traitorous 
 to their race, and to the traditions of its freedom, as 
 to join wittingly, and for any long period, in any 
 attempt to pull down England from the position she 
 has so long held amidst European nations.
 
 ioS FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 WHAT CHANGES HAVE TAKEN PLACE IN OPINION. 
 
 In commenting upon the great changes which take 
 place in opinion during long periods of time, and from 
 which alone we are to hope for such a change of 
 opinion in Europe as would discourage the main- 
 tenance of unnecessary military force, I cannot help 
 noticing the changes which have taken place in 
 equally great matters. Go back to the times, not so 
 very far distant, in which torture was really believed 
 to be a means of getting at truth — an idea almost 
 inconceivable in our day. Consider again the belief 
 in witchcraft. Perhaps the most potent weapon 
 that Philip the Fair and his atrocious band of 
 lawyers had against Pope Boniface, and against the 
 Order of Knights Templars, was the ready accusation 
 of magic. Against Boniface it was deposed that he 
 had been seen practising strange magical rites of a 
 sacrificial character.* Against the Templars it was 
 
 * " Besides all tin's, there were what in those days would 
 perhaps be heard with still deeper horror — magical rites and 
 dealings with the powers of darkness. Many witnesses had 
 heard that Benedetto Gaetani, that Pope Boniface, had a ring, 
 in which he kept an evil spirit. Brother Berard of Soriano had 
 seen from a window the Cardinal Gaetani, in a garden below, 
 draw a magic circle, and immolate a cock over a fire in an 
 earthen pot. The blood and flame mingled ; a thick smoke
 
 WAR. 109 
 
 deposed that they worshipped a magic head that looked 
 both ways — accusations which, however absurd, could 
 be readily supported by the infallible means of torture. 
 Let us now make a stride from the time of Philip 
 the Fair to that when Lord Mansfield adorned the 
 chief seat of English justice. What did that great 
 magistrate say, when some poor woman was arraigned 
 before him for magic arts, and especially accused of 
 walking through the air? " My opinion is, that this 
 good woman be suffered to return home, and whether 
 she shall do this, walking on the ground or riding 
 through the air, must be left entirely to her own plea- 
 sure, for there is nothing contrary to the lazes of 
 England in cither." 
 
 The author of the Spanish Conquest in America has 
 said, what a great history the history of a great cause 
 
 arose. The Cardinal sat reading spells from a book, and con- 
 juring up the devils. He then heard a terrible noise and wild 
 voices, 'Give us our share.' Gaetani took up the cock, and 
 threw it over the wall — ' Take your share.' The Cardinal then 
 left the garden, and shut himself up alone in his most secret 
 chamber, where throughout the night he was heard in deep 
 and earnest conversation, and a voice, the same voice, was heard 
 to answer. This witness deposed likewise to having seen 
 Gaetani worshipping an idol in which dwelt an evil spirit. This 
 idol was given to him by the famous magician, Theodore of 
 Bologna, and was worshipped as his God." — MlLMAN, Hist, of 
 Latin Christianity, vol. v. p. 374.
 
 1 10 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 would be. He might, however, have imagined a 
 much greater history — the rise, the flourishing, and 
 the fall of a remarkable opinion ; such, for instance, as 
 the belief in the possibility of witchcraft, or in the 
 utility of torture. It would be seen how such an 
 opinion arises of necessity in barbarism \ is afterwards 
 fed and supported by a barbarous kind of learning ; 
 how science, " falsely so called," fosters it ; how it 
 rises to power and becomes intertwined with great 
 institutions; what hideous cruelties it commits when 
 arrived at the plenitude of its development ; how the 
 common sense and common humanity of mankind, 
 secretly and almost without owning it to themselves, 
 begin to rebel against it ; how tenderly nurtured 
 enthusiasts (for a tender nurture makes a loving 
 heart) here and there write and speak and act 
 against the evil opinion, and end by becoming 
 martyrs to it ; how scientific discoveries and great 
 works of thought silently protest against it, and these 
 cannot be put to the torture, and cannot be put in 
 prison, and cannot be made martyrs of; and how at 
 last science, humanity, and good sense, either with or 
 without a revolution, rise up together against the evil 
 opinion, cast it off, and put it behind them for ever. 
 The whole world opens its eyes fully, looks at the 
 dead thing, and wonders that it has ever been
 
 WAR. in 
 
 dominated by such a miserable Sejanus, which is now 
 contemptuously borne along amidst the curses of a 
 dis-enslaved population. 
 
 During the last few sentences Milverton had been 
 walking up and down and firing his volleys of words 
 into us in rather a warm manner. 
 
 Ellesmere. Pray sit down, my good fellow, and do not 
 be so excited. It does not pay, as we used to say at 
 College. We are not an indignation meeting. 
 
 Milverton (sitting down). Well, it is foolish ; but most 
 people, I suppose, have some particular subject upon which 
 they are liable to go off into a tempest, — and with me 
 legal persecution is that subject. I can understand, and 
 not be irrationally intolerant of, any brutality in fair 
 lighting, any brutality in, or after, conquest ; any un- 
 scrupulousness of ambition which egotistically sweeps 
 away all obstacles before it ; but when you come to a 
 court of law, there, if nowhere else in the world, one does 
 expect something like moderation and rationality. You 
 can have no idea of the horrors of that persecution of the 
 Knights Templars unless you have studied the subject 
 in some such pages as those of Dean Milman's Latin 
 Christianity. By the way, have you ever seen the 
 signatures of a man before and after torture. The former 
 clear and bold : the latter a quivering mass of illegibility. 
 Those lawyers of Philip the Fair are an abomination 
 to me.
 
 1 1 2 FRTEXDS IN CO UNCIL. 
 
 Ellesmcre. Yes, we were not a good set in tliat time ; 
 nor a very good set in Charles the Second's time. My 
 predecessor Sir William Scroggs was not a highly 
 principled character. I wonder whether I should have 
 been as bad. I suppose I should : rascality is catching. 
 
 But now that you are calm again, Milverton, you may 
 proceed, and I will not interrupt you further. 
 
 Milverton. Before concluding, I must protest 
 against its being supposed that I think we should 
 be niggardly in the management of our military 
 establishments. If we are to have a new barrack, 
 let it be thoroughly well contrived and well built. 
 Every good soldier is such a valuable production 
 that we can hardly be too careful of him. It is waste 
 upon waste to have a large army, and because it is 
 large, to be careless about the means of maintaining 
 it in the highest state of health, strength, skill, and 
 general efficiency. A similar remark requires to be 
 made as to stores, fortifications, and all the muni- 
 ments and apparatus of warfare. And perhaps there 
 is a still more important consideration to be kept in 
 mind by a state which depends, for the recruiting of 
 its armies, upon the voluntary system, — namely, that 
 it should so behave towards its soldiers and sailors in 
 all questions arising out of enlistment, disbandment, 
 gratuities, pensions, and the like, that its justice, not
 
 WAR. 113 
 
 to say its liberality, should never be doubted. A belief 
 throughout the humbler classes that the government 
 is considerate or even generous in such matters is 
 actually worth a large sum of money, and is almost 
 equal in times of peace to an additional armament : 
 at least it will enable you to dispense with that 
 armament for a time. What credit is to the financier 
 in the power of raising money swiftly and upon easy 
 terms, this good report of the nation's generosity is to 
 the government in the power of raising rapidly, upon 
 an emergency, large armies, and, what is still more 
 difficult without that good report, of manning rapidly 
 large fleets. 
 
 UNAVOIDABLE WARS. 
 
 It is most unfair to represent as advocates of a 
 creeping or unjust peacefulness those who, anxiously 
 foreseeing many of the evil consequences of war, are 
 strenuous in producing facts and arguments that tend 
 to dissuade from it. A gift is not the less a gift 
 because the giver knows full well the value of what 
 he is giving : and the people who go to war without 
 reluctance do not prove their valour or their mag- 
 nanimity by so doing. We all know that there are 
 occasions when, as on the threat of foreign invasion, 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] H
 
 114 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 a nation gathers itself up in all its strength, when 
 selfish aims are thrown aside, when ordinary life is 
 felt to be tame, and buying and selling are not much 
 thought of, when even great griefs, that are but 
 private, fall lightly on us, and when the bonds of 
 society are knit together so closely, that the whole 
 nation produces and presents its full power of 
 resistance. Then it is that the ambitious man forgets 
 his ambition, the covetous man, if possible, his 
 money ; the civic crown with its glorious motto, 
 " ob cives scrvatos" ' becomes the chief desire of all 
 brave men, and tender mothers feel like the Spartan 
 matron of old, who, as she adjusted the buckler on 
 her young warrior's arm, could exclaim, " Come back, 
 either with it, or upon it." 
 
 And still a nobler occasion is that when, without 
 one thought of self-aggrandisement, one aspiration 
 after mere glory, or any of the pride of strength, a 
 nation quietly resolves that it is its duty for the 
 interests of the world, or for the defence of the 
 oppressed, to come out to battle ; and it does come 
 out sternly and sadly. 
 
 But these are rare occasions ; and the men and 
 other resources of a great country are not to be 
 played away in paltry vain wars arising from stupid 
 complications, which diplomacy ought to settle, or
 
 WAR. 115 
 
 indeed in any contests that are not grounded upon 
 dire necessity or absolute duty. 
 
 If statesmen are heedlessly inclined to imperil that 
 national strength which they are especially bound to 
 preserve intact if they can, we must bid them think of 
 their own poor people at home, of their daily wants 
 and privations already much aggravated by previous 
 wars, many of which cannot be justified ; and we may 
 venture to remind these statesmen that in the long 
 catalogue of human crimes there is none more deadly 
 to others than giving provocation to a war, which 
 might, by just forbearance, have been avoided. 
 
 Happily, however, it is not our own statesmen who 
 need the most, or who, perhaps, need at all, to have 
 such admonitions addressed to them. 
 
 Ellesmere. This essay, or rather this speech which you 
 have just given us, is all very well, Milverton, but does it 
 not greatly consist of what the first Napoleon would have 
 called "ideology"? How are you to dissuade warlike 
 nations, or despotic sovereigns, from playing largely at 
 soldiers ? 
 
 Milverton. Of course we cannot hope at a bound to 
 reform the world in this respect, but we may try to do 
 something towards this reform, if only by stating the facts 
 of the case clearly.
 
 u6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 For instance, I venture to ask the simple question, 
 whether there is any dynasty on earth that is worth 
 maintaining at the cost of keeping up an army of five 
 hundred thousand soldiers. I pause for a reply. 
 
 Ellesmere. You may pause. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Is not the whole social system worth 
 keeping up at this price ? You are going a great deal 
 too fast. 
 
 Milverton. That is the regular argument, or rather the 
 regular bugbear, that is brought up to justify every kind 
 of maladministration. If a social system has in it any 
 strength, worth, or vitality, it does not require huge 
 standing armies to maintain it. I admit that in most 
 of the European nations there are dangerous classes, 
 dangerous because uncared for and uneducated ; but 
 surely there is no state in Europe in which an army of 
 one hundred thousand soldiers could not keep down the 
 dangerous classes, if the bulk of the people were reason- 
 ablv well affected to the government. 
 
 Ellesmere. You disposed too lightly by far of one of 
 the chief motives to war — namely, the desire to occupy a 
 territory. 
 
 Milverton. At least I am sure that motive has faded 
 away in the minds of individuals ; though, for mere 
 political purposes, it may still be an inducement to 
 monarchs. 
 
 Let us imagine ourselves in the olden times. I am a 
 small vavasour living where I do now in Hampshire. 
 There comes to me a great neighbouring baron. We will 
 say, Lord Palmerston, who lives at no great distance, and 
 he says to me : — "Friend Milverton of Worth-Ashton, I
 
 WAR. 117 
 
 have a noble enterprize for thee. Collect thy hinds 
 together, and prepare them for battle. Henry, thy bailiff, 
 will train them as warriors should be trained, and John, 
 thy herdsman, will teach them to shoot with the bow. I 
 see there are stately yew-trees hereabouts. Valiant Sir 
 John of Bedford will join his bands with mine. We go to 
 dispossess the Saracen. There we will give thee broad 
 lands and wide domains instead of these few petty acres 
 not worth looking after. Thou art not a stalwart man 
 thyself; but I have observed that thou canst give thy 
 enemy a shrewd poke under the ribs when occasion offers, 
 and that thou hast the wisdom to wait for the occasion. 
 Valiant Sir John of Bedford is not lofty in stature, but he 
 can give a shrewd blow to his enemies on all occasions. 
 
 " We take the blessing of the Church with us, for that 
 has been promised to me by my good neighbour the 
 Abbot of Romsey, on condition that we despoil Benjamin 
 the Jew of Buckinghamshire of all his goods, and bestow 
 a tenth upon the Abbey. We will not fail to despoil him 
 of his goods : that thou mayest reckon upon. The Abbot 
 is a good man, and careth not for trifles such as hymns 
 and processions and images " (the word low-church would 
 not have been invented then). 
 
 And I, Leonard Milverton, should be asinine enough to 
 go ; and when we had dispossessed the Saracens, valiant 
 Sir John of Bedford and the Baron of Broadlands would 
 quarrel over the spoil. I should take one side or the 
 other, and be ruined in their wars ; or they would agree, 
 and as I have always been an outspeaking man, I should 
 be arraigned by both of them for contumacy. Anyway I 
 should soon be dispossessed of my lands.
 
 nS FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 But that is not the chief point. During the time that I 
 possessed these lands taken from the Saracen, I should 
 probably find out that I was no whit happier than I had 
 been in Hampshire ; that nuisances followed one every- 
 where, that I had become accustomed to home nuisances, 
 but that I had to acquire the peculiar power of endurance 
 necessary to bear the Saracen nuisances. 
 
 Now imagine the Baron of Broadlands coming and 
 making the same proposition to me at this time of the 
 world, and what answer should I make but the following : 
 — " Baron of Broadlands, thou art a bold, shrewd, and 
 stalwart man. I would not dissuade thee from any good 
 work. Go thou with valiant Sir John of Bedford, and 
 despoil the Jew of Buckinghamshire. Thou hast my 
 blessing as well as that of the Abbot of Romsey ; but I 
 go not. When I was younger, I served under Murray of 
 Albemarle, and bore his red pennon through many 
 beauteous lands, but none saw I that I liked better than 
 my own. Thou talkest of the Saracens, and I call to mind 
 the beautiful town of Seville. And the place is fair, is 
 passing fair ; but when thou hast dispossessed the 
 Saracens, there remain the mosquitoes. Go thou, there- 
 fore, with Sir John of Bedford, and when thou hast 
 conquered and dispossessed the Saracens, if thou abide 
 there for ten years, and sendest word to me that the lands 
 of the Saracens is better than the manor of Broadlands, 
 then will I come too. But now I am not minded to part 
 from my swine." 
 
 Of course he never would send for me ; for, as I told you, 
 rcssion is not now undertaken with a view of occupa- 
 tion. Then why this idiotic maintenance of huge armies ?
 
 WAR. 119 
 
 Ellesmere. Ah, why indeed ! 
 
 An odd idea has often struck me about an invasion of 
 the French. Of course by some accident or other they 
 might some day land a large body of troops in England. 
 They would then proceed perhaps to occupy some large 
 town. Sunday would come. Imagine fifty thousand of 
 the lower classes of Frenchmen contemplating an English 
 Sunday. They are pleasant, handy little fellows, those 
 French common soldiers. They would commune with 
 one another, and would say: — "If we were to conquer 
 this country our rulers would make us occupy it. This 
 English Sunday would then decimate our ranks by ennui." 
 The next morning would see them in full retreat to the 
 coast. Meanwhile the English of the great town would 
 discover what handy little dogs the Frenchmen were, what 
 cooks, what pleasant cheery fellows, and they would run 
 after them, imploring them to stay. The worst blows 
 would be exchanged while the French were endeavouring 
 to get away from their hospitable entertainers. Ever 
 after, when rattling their dominoes in their sunny cafes, 
 these invading Frenchmen would tell their companions of 
 the awful Sunday they had spent in England. " A good 
 people, a kind people, those English," they would say, 
 " but so dull, and such bad cooks, and no sun there. We 
 will march with our Emperor anywhere but to England." 
 By the way, whether it shone or not, they would swear 
 there was no sun, for all foreigners believe we live for the 
 most part in a fog ; and a good sound prejudice is not to 
 be contradicted by mere eyesight and observation ; is it, 
 Dunsford ? You know your parish pretty well. 
 
 Milverton. Ellesmere's idea is a humorous one — I
 
 120 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 think we have heard it before from him ; but if the fifty 
 thousand Frenchmen do come, not many of them will 
 return, to tell about our English Sunday or anything else. 
 But to resume the argument about the folly of conquest 
 for the sake of occupation. I have taken an individual 
 case ; but the argument may be fully maintained when 
 applied to tribes and nations. Why, I ask, should the 
 Allobroges desert their splendid Lyons to possess them- 
 selves of any other city : or why should the Pannonians 
 quit their pleasant Vienna to occupy any other metropolis 
 in Europe ? Or why should the Belgre rush away from 
 gay Brussels and that charming park of theirs to distant 
 and nugatory conquests ? Or why should the Quadi and 
 the Marcomanni flee from imperial Prague to occupy any 
 other spot upon the earth ? 
 
 To come nearer home, if my neighbours of flourishing 
 Southampton were to invite me to any scheme of conquest 
 with a view to occupation, I should without hesitation 
 thus reply : " Brother Wessexians, for an excursion — a 
 peaceful excursion, on a fine summer's day, with little or 
 no roughness of sea (that last condition is indispensable), 
 as far as the not distant island of Vectis,— I am your 
 man ; but why should we quit our pleasant and thriving 
 abode for untried regions ? Did not Canute, properly 
 called Knut, when he conquered us, read us a lesson 
 rebuking all absurd presumption ? No : let us continue to 
 
 elect public-spirited Mr. for Mayor : let us improve 
 
 the market-place (that really wants improving) ; let us 
 increase and embellish our public gardens ; but let us 
 budge not from where we are." 
 
 I hate, as you know, to press any argument beyond
 
 WAR. 121 
 
 what it will bear ; and I must confess there is one town, 
 the inhabitants of which might make a claim for foreign 
 conquest which I should find it more difficult to resist. 
 That town is Mancunium, more commonly known by the 
 name of Manchester. But the Mancunians are of all 
 men the most disposed to peace. Their name has become 
 a bye-word because they are said to require peace at any 
 price. If the Mancunians are satisfied, for Heaven's 
 sake do not let us put it into their heads that they could 
 gain anything by change. I dare say they are wise in 
 wishing to stay where they are ; and it becomes a case of 
 (I fortiori when applied to any other city on the face 
 of the earth. 
 
 Ellesmerc. I will admit that individuals are wiser 
 than they were in these matters ; but what are called 
 political complications are as numerous and as vexatious 
 as ever. I can only repeat my question as to what should 
 be the remedy — putting aside that which may arise from 
 the gradual change in public opinion on war. 
 
 Milverton. Ellesmere asks me, what way there is out 
 of all this difficulty, what out-look there is in any direction 
 that should give any ground for hoping that this century 
 will witness any diminution in the number of soldier 
 maintained throughout Europe ? In such cases I can 
 only look for the coming of a great man to power, who, 
 appreciating the just thoughts of the most thoughtful men 
 of his age, and longing to spare his subjects, boldly com- 
 mences a career of gradual disbandment. Such a man 
 as King Leopold- of Belgium I believe to have greatness 
 enough in him to commence such a career, if he had 
 been called to the head of any of the more powerful
 
 122 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 monnrchies of Europe. You see what he has practically 
 said to his people : — " I am ready to work for you and 
 with you ; but if, upon due deliberation, you do not wish 
 to have me for your king, I will go away from you." 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. There are few Leopolds of Belgium. 
 
 Milverton. Well, I am no courtier. What can any 
 king or queen do for me ? They cannot make my trees 
 grow. But I think that our own monarch would not wish 
 to occupy a throne where the dynasty was only to be 
 supported by irrationally large armies, breaking down the 
 public wealth. 
 
 Common people think that kings and queens have 
 such a very happy, unworking life. Our Guelphs, whatever 
 faults or demerits may be imputed to some of them, have, 
 in the majority of instances, been exceedingly punctual 
 and laborious persons in matters of business. I know 
 this, that when I was a youth in a public office, however 
 long, weighty, and elaborate a dispatch was sent down to 
 the king from the office, back used to come, almost always 
 by return of post, a reply to the head of the department : 
 and certainly the present occupant of the throne has 
 rather exceeded than fallen short of her best predecessors 
 in punctuality and dispatch of business. Now such 
 sovereigns might fairly say, — ''We endeavour to do our 
 duty in a very difficult position, and if you will not let us 
 do it without an unreasonable sacrifice on your part by 
 keeping up armies which afflict you, and are a burden on 
 our conscience, you must find some other person to do 
 the work." 
 
 Ellesmere. There are, no doubt, some monarchs who 
 might accept and act upon these rational views ; but, my
 
 WAR. 123 
 
 dear fellow, what are you to do with a man who thinks he 
 has a mission for conquest, or rules over a nation of that 
 spirit? There will always, as far as I can see, be such 
 men and such nations. At any rate, there will always be 
 men in great power and high place who love despotism. 
 
 Milvcrton. You will say it is but a vain imagination, 
 but if one could imagine one's self the good genius, or the 
 sage, who in a dream, as Eastern stories run, is permitted 
 to stand by the bedside of a monarch, and to give him for 
 once in his life wise and disinterested advice, one would 
 say, " Sir : this fighting other kings' subjects, or depressing 
 the life and energy of your own, is but a small endeavour, 
 and, moreover, a very trite one. There is nothing new to 
 be done in that way now. It would be something com- 
 paratively new to try and make your subjects comfortable ; 
 and, considering the perennial difficulties of human life, it 
 would be about the hardest task you could encounter. 
 But if benevolence is not your characteristic, and you 
 must have that empty thing called fame, take at least an 
 unusual route to obtain a singular renown. Nature lies 
 before you, a country into which few private men or 
 monarchs have made successful incursions. Take Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus * for your pattern ; and see whether regal or 
 
 * I have since thought whether Milverton chose a good 
 example or not, in naming Ptolemy Philadelphus, as that king 
 certainly maintained huge armies and large fleets. But he seems 
 to have used them chiefly for protection, and his reign is not 
 signalized by any great war. In fostering science and learning 
 he perhaps occupies the first place amongst monarchs. Indeed 
 these Ptolemies were a great race. What a fine saying that is of 
 Ptolemy Soter, especially for his time — "That it was better to 
 make rich than to be rich." — [D.]
 
 124 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 imperial resources can avail to compel Nature to give up 
 one more of her great secrets. In Astronomy, for instance, 
 we have been satisfied for nearly two hundred years 
 with a law which is perhaps but a corollary of a much 
 wider law, that a further questioning of matter might 
 discover. 
 
 " Our knowledge of all around us, from the hyssop that 
 grows upon the wall to the remote nebulae which are yet 
 unresolved by human science, is but twilight knowledge. 
 Let the ambition of your reign be to increase, in however 
 small degree, the domains of learning and of science.* 
 
 " In this bewildering, puzzled, insecure, and blundering 
 world, I will not pretend to you that anything is signally 
 worth doing ; but at any rate there is one thing which it 
 is worth while not to do, and that is, to destroy your 
 fellow-creatures, and their poor habitations, by fire and 
 sword. That is neither a novel, wise, nor ingenious 
 proceeding ; whereas discovery in art or science, if it does 
 
 * A correspondent writes to me : — " There are peaceful vic- 
 tories to be won at less than the cost of one day's warfare. 
 Geology offers great conquests, astronomy grand exploits ; and 
 some of the scientific problems which demand solution are 
 hardly to be solved without imperial means and resources. If I 
 wanted to indicate one of such problems I would ask — Is our 
 knowledge of even the figure of our own planet at all satisfactory ? 
 Wc are told that ' the northern and southern hemispheres are 
 dissimilar.' What is the case if we divide the globe by any 
 imaginaiy line into eastern and western? Take the hemisphere 
 whicli extends from 90 East long, to 90° West, what experi- 
 ments for ascertaining the real figure of the earth have been 
 made — what establishments for the furtherance of astronomical 
 science exist in that haif of the globe ? "
 
 WAR. 125 
 
 not render men less miserable, is at least an employ- 
 ment which is not stamped with obvious absurdity and 
 mischief." 
 
 Elles7nere. After this discourse the monarch would 
 awake, would tell his courtiers that he had suffered from 
 a particularly foolish and unpleasant dream, would call 
 for the muster-rolls of his armies, and, like the elder 
 Napoleon, declare that no girl could read a love-story 
 with more intense interest than that with which he 
 perused these interesting documents. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. The new Emperor of Russia seems to 
 be undertaking great things not in the least connected 
 with conquest. This serf emancipation is perhaps the 
 largest and the most difficult transaction at present going 
 on in the world. The Czar seems quite in earnest, too, 
 if we may judge by his speeches.* 
 
 * The following are extracts from the speeches to which Mr. 
 Midhurst alluded : — "'I am always happy at being able to 
 thank the nobility' (this was at Moscow); .... 'to my 
 regret, I cannot this day thank you. You may remember,' he 
 said, ' two years ago in this hall I spoke to you of the necessity 
 of proceeding, sooner or later, to the reform of those laws which 
 regulate servitude — a reform that must come from above that it 
 may not come from below. My words have been ill understood. 
 .... I have fixed for you the bases of reform, and I never 
 will swerve from them.' 
 
 "The address at Nijni-Novgorod is a mixture of caress and 
 scolding, that indicates the existence of two opposing and nearly 
 equal parties in that government. ' I rejoice in expressing my 
 personal gratitude for the patriotism of the nobility of Nijni- 
 Novgorod I thank you for being the first to respond to 
 
 my call in that weighty affair of the amelioration in the position
 
 126 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Milverton. Yes : the Emperor of Russia seems to be 
 entering upon an excellent and an original career. 
 Heaven grant that he may have the force of mind to 
 persevere in it : for there are always huge difficulties in 
 the way of a reforming monarch, and plenty of people 
 about him to say, on critical occasions, "The old way, 
 Sire, was the best, and certainly the safest for you." 
 
 But to speak of despotism generally. I must say, I 
 cannot understand an ambition which is limited to the 
 present life, which says to itself, " pleasant pastures and 
 wavy crops of corn, and beautiful cities, and noble high- 
 ways, and rivers kept within their bounds, — all flourishing 
 in my time, and mostly created by me : — and after me 
 the deluge." So, too, it is but a small thing for a prince 
 or other governor to govern men rigidly, even with great 
 present advantage to themselves, during the short span 
 
 of the peasantry It belongs to you to balance public 
 
 with private interests in this weighty affair. But I hear with 
 regret of a spirit of selfishness having sprung up among you. 
 Selfishness is the destruction of all things. It is a pity such 
 should be the case. Away with your egotism ! I trust in you. 
 
 I trust there will be no more of these selfish views 
 
 Gentlemen, act well for yourselves, and not badly for others. . 
 ... I trust you.' In Kostroma, which he calls the home of 
 his family, the Emperor is very gracious. 'The reception you 
 gave me yesterday deeply affected my heart. I thank you for 
 your willingness to meet my views as to the amelioration in the 
 position of the peasantry. This question — a question all im- 
 portant for the future development of Russia — I bear upon my 
 
 heart I hope you will settle the affair with the Divine 
 
 assistance, and without injury either to yourselves or the 
 peasantry." — The British Quarterly Review, January 1859.
 
 WAR. 127 
 
 of any man's power, compared with what it would be to 
 leave them, when his life should end, more governable 
 and more assuredly self-governed. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I can hardly express to you how much 
 I delight in the views you have just expressed, and how 
 entirely I coincide with them. I have been a man in 
 authority — early in authority : — and if ever there was a 
 man who was by nature superlatively fond of governing, 
 and not merely of governing but of managing minutely 
 and reforming, I am that unfortunate individual. I 
 never look into anything, but I see some part of it which 
 might, to my fancy, be improved and made to work 
 better. Such a nature is prone to be very meddlesome, 
 and to keep all people who are in any way under its 
 sway as much in leading-strings as possible. But what 
 little intellect and powers of observation I have, tended 
 to keep this meddling disposition in order ; and I always 
 said to myself, " What is the good, comparatively 
 speaking, of my getting work well done, if I am always 
 to be by, to see it done, and to have a hand in it ? I 
 want to have my underlings grow up equal or superior 
 to myself, and that will never be the case if I teach 
 them in such a manner only as to keep them always in 
 a slavish mental dependency." 
 
 Milverton. I can return the compliment, and say how 
 much I agree with you. In my little way I have had a 
 great deal of work to direct, and I have always aimed at 
 three things in this direction : first, to teach those under 
 me to do the work with all the aids, handiness, and 
 adroitness that experience gives the older or the more 
 practised man ; then, if I could, to put into their minds the
 
 I2S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 germinating idea of the work. This seems a rather over- 
 line phrase, but there is such a thing as a leading and 
 germinating idea in most kinds of work that is worth 
 doing at all. Lastly, I have sought to impress them with 
 a sense of responsibility about the work. These three 
 objects accomplished, I leave the workmen alone for the 
 most part. It has happened to me sometimes, and I 
 dare say it has often happened to you, Mr. Midhurst, 
 to find that these people, whom one has endeavoured to 
 train, have come and said, " You never go through our 
 work now, whereas you used to be so particular about 
 every step : I wish you would examine more carefully 
 what we have now done." — " Thank you," I have replied, 
 " but I have done with teaching and training. You 
 know enough to walk by yourselves, and only want 
 self-confidence. And I only want to see results, and 
 to examine them." 
 
 Ellesmere. I quite approve of all you have been 
 saying, but I wish to take you both down a peg or two 
 in your own estimation of yourselves. Though you are 
 both very hard-working men, you are at the same time 
 indolent and not inclined to do a bit more work than 
 is necessary. (I know at least that such is the case 
 with Mil vert on, and I conjecture it is so with Mr. 
 Midhurst.) 
 
 But I should like to bring forward another point. Any 
 stranger who had come in during the last few minutes, 
 would have supposed, Milverton, that you were a man 
 who abhorred over-much government ; and yet, occa- 
 sionally, you claim an action for government in matters 
 where it seldom enters now, or only just sufficiently
 
 WAR. 129 
 
 to dip its feet delicately and produce a muddiness in the 
 water. 
 
 Milvcrton. Now, my dear friend 
 
 Ellesmere. Don't be cross, Milverton. Whenever a 
 man begins with " my dear friend," pronounced in a 
 somewhat querulous tone, something savage and espe- 
 cially unfriendly is coming. 
 
 Milverton. Well, my dear plague, have I not explained 
 at least one hundred times in your presence, that I never 
 want to introduce government action except when indi- 
 vidual action is impossible, or at least utterly inadequate ? 
 Have I not often quoted the man in Aristophanes who 
 wished to make a separate peace with a hostile nation 
 for himself and his family ? We see the absurdity of 
 that ; but we do not see that there are many things in 
 social life which it would be just as absurd for an indi- 
 vidual to attempt. You cannot by your own exertions 
 secure unadulterated food, and it is not worth doing to 
 have the streets swept and watered only before your 
 own doors. 
 
 How I wish that Mr. John Stuart Mill, or some other 
 accurate defmer and divider, would point out and classify, 
 in somewhat minute detail, what things may be left to 
 individual action in a community and what things must 
 be left to government to do, if they are to be done 
 at all. 
 
 Ellesjnere. I wish the government would undertake 
 to provide men in armour to bat at cricket, for the pre- 
 sent practice of flinging the ball at you with catapultic 
 force, which Master Walter has adopted, has been the 
 cause of my receiving such a blow this morning that I 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] I
 
 130 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 am rather stupefied, and am unable to maintain my part 
 adequately in this discussion. 
 
 Milverton. That is the way, Mr. Midhurst, that Elles- 
 mere gets off — by the aid of a joke and a sneer — when he 
 is beaten ; but I think we have said enough to fortify our 
 position, and that he will not in a hurry attack us again 
 on these points. 
 
 We have rather wandered away from our original sub- 
 ject, and before the conversation ends, I must enumerate 
 the points which I have dwelt upon in what Ellesmere 
 calls my " speech " to you — that armies irrationally large 
 are maintained in Europe — that the people are greatly 
 overburdened with taxes in order to support those armies 
 — that it would be well that we men of Europe should, 
 from time to time, ask the reason for the maintenance of 
 these armies, and that those amongst us who possess any 
 power of thought and expression should endeavour to 
 guide public opinion into a wise state with regard to 
 the maintenance of those armies, having a belief in the 
 ultimate effect of that opinion, and a hope that individuals 
 in great station may perceive what are now the highest 
 forms of ambition for them — viz., not conquest for exten- 
 sion of empire, for glory, or for the triumph of any one 
 set of opinions, but domestic improvement in their own 
 states, and the gradual development of freedom through- 
 out their dominions.* 
 
 * The reader must have noticed how little part I [Dunsford] 
 mostly take in these conversations. The truth is, I am such an 
 unready person, that my thoughts come too late. I suppose this 
 aiises from my having lived so much out of the world. I think
 
 WAR. 131 
 
 I know as much as Ellesmere or Milverton, but they seem not 
 only to have all their wits about them but all their knowledge, 
 whereas mine has to be excavated. 
 
 I mentioned the above as an excuse for subjoining one or two 
 remarks upon war which occurred to me while we were walking 
 home. They were chiefly reminiscences from one of Granville 
 Sharp's Essays. He quotes a passage from Howard, the Philan- 
 thropist, in which that good man, writing from Moscow, says, 
 " No less than 70,000 recruits for the army and navy have died 
 in the Russian hospitals during a single year." 
 
 Sharp then notices the fact that despotism destroys its millions 
 silently ; while sedition is noisy and tumultuous, and is always 
 dreaded and detested. 
 
 "There are few riots," he adds, "without some grievance." 
 "Jupiter," says Lucian, "seldom has recourse to his thunder 
 but when he is in the wrong ; " and at the close of a long military 
 life, Monsieur de Vendome owned that, "in the eternal disputes 
 between the mules and the muleteers, the mules were generally 
 in the right." 
 
 How well this would have come in at that point of the con- 
 versation where Milverton asked, as I thought most pertinently, 
 whether there is any dynasty on earth that is worth maintaining 
 at the cost of keeping up an army of 500,000 soldiers? 
 
 I think I could have added greatly to Milverton' s catalogue of 
 the miseries that have been occasioned by war. He did not even 
 touch upon the ravages of the Northmen, or of the Ottomans, or 
 of the great native princes of India. 
 
 I should like also to have quoted some passages from the cele- 
 brated 29th bulletin of Napoleon, issued during his Russian 
 campaign, such as the following : — 
 
 " The cold, which began on the 7th, suddenly increased ; and 
 on the 14th, 15th, and 16th, the thermometer was sixteen and 
 eighteen degrees below the freezing point. 
 
 "The roads were covered with ice ; the cavalry, artillery, and 
 baggage horses perished every night, not only by hundreds, but 
 by thousands, particularly the German and French horses. 
 
 " In a few days more than 30,000 horses perished ; our cavalry
 
 J 
 1 3 2 FRIENDS IN CO UNCIL. 
 
 were on foot ; our artillery and our baggage were without con- 
 veyance. It was necessary to abandon and destroy a good pait 
 of our cannon, ammunition, and provisions. 
 
 "This army, so fine on the 6th, was very different on the 
 14th, — almost without cavalry, without artillery, and without 
 transports. 
 
 "This difficulty, joined to a cold which suddenly came on, 
 rendered our situation miserable. Those men whom nature had 
 not sufficiently steeled to be above all the chances of fate and 
 fortune, appeared shaken, lost their gaiety, their good humour, 
 and dreamed but of misfortunes and catastrophes ; those whom 
 she had created superior to everything, preserved their gaiety 
 and their ordinary manners, and saw fresh glory in the different 
 difficulties to be surmounted." — Original Journals of the Eighteen 
 Campaigns of Napoleon Buonaparte, vol. ii. p. 320. London. 
 No date. 
 
 Nothing is said in this remarkable bulletin about the loss of 
 men ; the full truth is told about the horses ; but that is quite 
 enough information for any intelligent persont. — [D.]
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A LOVE STORY. 
 
 " Oh Love unconquered in fight," as the Greek poet 
 says, who would have thought that I should have to 
 meddle any more with your affairs ! I could not, 
 however, see all these young people running into peril 
 without attempting to guide or save them. It is 
 evident to me that Ellesmere loves Mildred, but I do 
 not think he will ever disclose his love. I doubt 
 whether she loves him, and I suspect that her affec- 
 tions are, or have been, set upon another. I am 
 uncomfortable, too, about Blanche, and it will be a 
 terrible thing if, as sometimes happens, the two sisters 
 should love the same man. 
 
 Having these thoughts in my mind, I resolved to 
 have a walk with Mildred, and to see whether I could 
 come to some explanation with her. Both of the girls 
 are very loving to me, and often call me their uncle, 
 though I am no relative whatever of theirs. 
 
 Accordingly, I managed to walk alone with Mildred
 
 1 34 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 amidst those unguarded orchards which are to be 
 found for miles together by the side of this beautiful 
 river Rhine. I am the most stupid man in the world 
 in any matter of a diplomatic kind, and though I had 
 prepared six or eight different ways of bringing about 
 the subject naturally, none of them would come to 
 hand when I wanted them. I was obliged to begin 
 abruptly, with no other introduction than that of 
 having previously admired a beautiful plum-tree. 
 The transition was a bold one, but what is to be done 
 when a man has no skill in the delicate diplomacy of 
 conversation. I sighed and said : — 
 
 " What a thing love is, and what a pity it is that all the 
 qualities which might help a woman or a man in any 
 other affair in life, seem to have no influence in this, the 
 greatest ; where wisdom, forethought, and resolve appear 
 to have no room for any action whatever." " Then you 
 too, dear uncle, have not altogether escaped this mad- 
 ness," Mildred exclaimed. "What a happy woman she 
 would have been, the woman that you loved ! except that 
 she would have had too much of her own way, and we 
 women like to battle a little, or manoeuvre, for our influ- 
 ence." A bright thought struck me, which, in my pre- 
 vious cogitations, had never come into my mind, — that 
 I would tell her my own story, never hitherto told to 
 any one, and that I should thus be able tacitly to moralize 
 (.n hers. Yes, my dear, I replied, I have been in love,
 
 A LOVE STORY. 135 
 
 and indeed I am so still. You may smile, Mildred, but 
 such is the truth ; and as it may do you some good to 
 hear my story, I will tell it. 
 
 '• Her name was Alice." 
 
 " Ah, the same as my mother's." 
 
 Yes it was, and we were brought up together. She 
 was fourteen when I was seventeen, and I loved her 
 more year after year, as the years went on, almost with- 
 out knowing what love is. I went to college. Now you 
 will be surprised to learn that I was not naturally a 
 student. Passionately fond of music, doating upon poetry, 
 I made my own little sonnets in those days, as we boys all 
 did, and was a devoted lover of nature and of art, but not 
 at all a student. I cannot imagine any youth to whom it 
 could have been a greater suffering to immure himself in 
 study than it was to me. Eut I did it. I found out that 
 I loved Alice, that the only chance of winning her was to 
 obtain what is called some success in life, and I resolved 
 to succeed. Always reverence a scholar, my dear, — if not 
 for the scholarship, at least for the suffering and the self- 
 denial which have been endured to gain the scholar's 
 proficiency. Fond as, I have told you, I was of music, I 
 laid it aside during my college life, and never once per- 
 mitted myself to go to a musical party. As for poetry, I 
 carefully kept away from it, as if it were some evil thing. 
 The slight recreation of looking at newspapers and 
 reviews I permitted to myself; and well can I remember 
 the stern restraint I exercised on meeting by chance with 
 extracts from modern poetical works, which I would not 
 allow myself to read until the day after I had taken my 
 degree.
 
 136 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 I can see that you often pity Milverton for his unre- 
 mitting labour. Now I should be the last man to depre- 
 ciate the labours of any friend, still less of Milverton, but 
 they cannot be compared with those of a very weary, 
 solitary scholar. In the one case the stimulus is imme- 
 diate : the result comes quickly. An article is prepared, 
 a speech delivered, a report drawn up, a book written ; 
 and there is immediate action on the world, or there 
 seems to be. Opposition only serves to increase ardour, 
 and success or failure alike promote new endeavours. 
 Not so with the solitary student. His aims are far oft 
 and the results to him But no more of this. 
 
 My only pleasure was in correspondence with your , 
 
 with my Alice ; and our letters, though of the tamest 
 description, in which there was more talk of conic 
 sections than of love, were an inexpressible comfort to 
 me. 
 
 I succeeded. I became nearly the first man of my 
 year in both of the great subjects of examination. I 
 might now come home with some hope at least of having 
 made a beginning of fortune. 
 
 I dare say, my dear, you would like to know what Alice 
 was like. No love story is complete without such a 
 description of the heroine. Well, there is a picture in 
 Paris, at the palace of the Luxembourg, called Les illu- 
 sions perdues. A noble figure of a man, in the prime of 
 life, or rather beyond the prime of life, when the leaf is 
 just beginning to turn yellow at the edges, is sitting on a 
 marble quay. His head bends forward, his arms fall 
 down, in utter dejection. It is sunset. A barque is 
 putting off from the quay ; and the barque is crowded
 
 A LOVE STORY. 137 
 
 with gay minstrels, happy children, and bright-eyed 
 damsels — 
 
 "Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm." 
 
 Nobody regards him — the dejected man. Nor does he 
 look at them. He has just glanced at them. They are 
 not, however, in his thoughts ; but they have brought 
 back, in long array, what Tennyson calls 
 
 " Portions and parcels of the dreadful past." 
 
 It is to my mind one of the most affecting pictures I 
 have ever seen. But that is not its peculiar merit in my 
 eyes. One of the girls in the centre of the boat, who is 
 leaning her head upon her hand and looking upwards, 
 is the image of what my Alice was. 
 
 The chief thing I had to look forward to in this journey 
 we are making was, that we might return by way of Paris 
 and that I might see that picture again. You must 
 contrive that we do return that way. Ellesmere will do 
 anything to please you, and Milverton is always perfectly 
 indifferent as to where he goes, so that he is not asked to 
 see works of art, or to accompany a party of sight-seers 
 to a cathedral. We will go and see this picture together 
 once ; and once I must see it alone. 
 
 I returned home from college, as I said, and found 
 Alice as loving as ever. We walked together and we 
 talked together, and she was never tired of questioning 
 me about my struggles, the rivals I had overcome, and 
 the pleasures I had resisted ; but I had not the courage 
 to tell her that it was for her dear sake I had fought the 
 battle.
 
 13S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Presently there came to our quiet house a young 
 soldier. His christian name was Henry. "Why, that 
 was my fathers," Mildred exclaimed. He was a nephew 
 of Alice's father, and the two cousins walked together, 
 and rode together, for Alice had to show Henry the 
 beautiful country where we lived. I had not been on 
 horseback for many years, and did not like to show my 
 awkwardness as a beginner in the presence of her whom 
 I loved. It was a very pleasant time. I began to love 
 Henry as a brother, and the more so from the contrast of 
 our two characters. He was a frank, bold, fearless, care- 
 less, gay young man. One day he went over to see some 
 old companions who were quartered in the neighbouring 
 town. Alice and I were alone again, and we walked out 
 together in the evening. We spoke of my future hopes 
 and prospects. I remembered that I was emboldened to 
 press her arm. She returned the pressure, and for a 
 moment there never was, perhaps, a happier man. Had 
 I known more of love, I should have known that this 
 evident return of affection was anything but a good sign ; 
 " and," continued she, in the unconnected manner that you 
 women sometimes speak, " I am so glad that you love dear 
 Henry. Oh, if we could but come and live near you when 
 you get a curacy, how happy we should all be." This short 
 sentence was sufficient. There was no need of more 
 explanation. I knew all that had happened, and felt as if 
 I no longer trod upon the firm earth, for it seemed a 
 quicksand under me. 
 
 The agony of that dull evening, the misery of that long 
 night ! I have sometimes thought that unsuccessful love 
 i^ almost too great a burden to be put upon such a poor
 
 A LOVE STORY. 139 
 
 creature as man. But He knows best ; and it must have 
 been intended, for it is so common. 
 
 The next day I remember I borrowed Henry's horse, 
 and rode madly about, bounding through woods (I who 
 had long forgotten to ride) and galloping over open 
 downs. If the animal had not been wiser and more sane 
 than I was, we should have been dashed to pieces many 
 times. And so by sheer exhaustion of body I deadened 
 the misery of my mind, and looked upon their happy state 
 with a kind of stupefaction. In a few days I found a 
 pretext for quitting my home, and I never saw your 
 mother again ; for it was your mother, Mildred, and you 
 are not like her, but like your father, and still I love you. 
 But the great wound has never been healed. It is a foolish 
 thing, perhaps, that any man should so doat upon a 
 woman that he should never afterwards care for any other, 
 but so it has been with me ; and you cannot wonder that a 
 sort of terror should come over me when I see anybody 
 in love, and when I think that his or her love is not likely 
 to be returned. And now, Mildred, I come to what was 
 the purpose of my telling you this story, — to express to you 
 my hope that you are not in my plight, and to ask you 
 frankly, whether you are not in danger of loving Milverton ? 
 
 Mildred. Not now : not in any danger. I will tell you 
 what saved me. I had for a long time been struggling 
 against the feelings that were besetting my heart in favour 
 of my cousin, not only from the natural pride of women, 
 but also for the sake of another who perhaps even then 
 loved him much better, and would be less able to control 
 her love. You can easily divine whom I mean. Indeed 
 I see you have already divined it.
 
 Mo FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 You recollect the serious illness that my cousin 
 Milverton had last year. You remember how anxious we 
 were all about him. He was attended by the great doctor 
 
 A . We were not living in the house with my cousin, 
 
 but used to leave him the last thing at night, and come 
 again the first thing in the morning. 
 
 Upon arriving at the house early one morning I found, 
 both from the report of the nurse and of his servant, that 
 he had passed a worse night than usual, and that some 
 symptoms of a dangerous character were aggravated. 
 Words cannot tell the anxiety with which I waited the 
 
 arrival of Dr. A . At last the doctor came. Dr. A , 
 
 besides being one of the most eminent physicians of the 
 day, is a great scholar, and a great practical chemist. 
 In this last-mentioned capacity he was especially wel- 
 come to my cousin, who was then deeply engaged in 
 some researches which needed the aid of chemistry. Long 
 and frequent used to be the discussions between himself 
 and the doctor upon certain vexed points. 
 
 I sat on the stairs, waiting in direful suspense for the 
 doctor to come out. A quarter of an hour passed, half an 
 hour, three quarters of an hour. I augured the worst from 
 the long visit of the doctor. At last he came out of the 
 sick man's room with a happy expression on his coun- 
 tenance, though a very thoughtful one. I rushed up 
 two or three steps to meet him. "It is good news," I 
 exclaimed. " I think we shall do it, I really do think we 
 shall do it," he replied. " It will be one of the most useful 
 discoveries of modern times, and will immortalize us both. 
 But you girls do not care for these things." " But your 
 patient ; " I said rather peevishly, — " Is he better ? Is it
 
 A LOVE STORY. 141 
 
 a crisis that has passed ? Do you know that he was very 
 ill all last night, and that they thought of sending for 
 you?" A sudden expression of dismay came over the 
 old man's face, and he absolutely blushed. " Good heavens, 
 I did not think of asking him how he was ; I never was 
 so ashamed of myself in my life. We began talking of 
 this confounded invention of ours. I told him what I had 
 
 done, he told me what he had thought, and but I must 
 
 go back into the room," and away hurried the doctor back 
 into the patient's room. 
 
 I took up my station again on the stairs. This time it 
 was not with a radiant face that the doctor re-appeared, 
 but with an unmistakeable air of vexation and mortification 
 on his countenance. " I have been very remiss," he said. 
 " Get this made up directly, and I will be back again in a 
 few hours." In the course of the day my cousin grew 
 worse, and the crisis of the disorder really did come on in 
 twenty-four hours' time. It ended, however, as you know 
 most favourably, and he was cured. 
 
 And so was I ; for I thought to myself, here is a man 
 not at all indifferent to pain, but on the contrary, 
 exquisitely sensitive to it, as most men of his kind are, 
 and yet so absorbed is he in his plans and projects that he 
 can forget to take even the most ordinary care of himself. 
 Such a man will never love any woman deeply, at least as 
 I should like to be loved. With a more devoted person, 
 like my sister Blanche, for instance, it might be otherwise. 
 
 Dunsford. I really think you came to a most harsh 
 and unjustifiable conclusion, my dear ; but I am glad you 
 came to it. Forgive me for saying so, but you never 
 could have loved, Mildred.
 
 142 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Mildred. Perhaps so. Indeed I am not sure that there 
 is not too much sympathy between my cousin and myself 
 for love. The sympathy between us is still intense ; and 
 I would forego almost any earthly pleasure to further his 
 purposes, when I am under the full influence of his quiet 
 enthusiasm for them. I would willingly remain unmarried 
 to be of any use or comfort to him, but I could not be 
 married to him. And now, father Confessor, I have 
 finished my confession to you. 
 
 We walked home silently amidst the mellow orchards 
 glowing ruddily in the rays of the setting sun.
 
 ( 143 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CRITICISM. 
 
 I almost begin to believe the common saying, that 
 any woman may marry any man she pleases ; that is, 
 provided she sees him frequently, and that he knows 
 that she does love him. 
 
 After my conversation with Mildred, I made up my 
 mind to tell Milverton what I had perceived about 
 Blanche with regard to himself. He was at first 
 greatly distressed and vexed. " Pray don't say so," 
 he exclaimed : " surely you are only jesting ; but 
 then," he added, "you are not the man to jest about 
 these things." Then he took comfort in declaring 
 that I could know nothing about such matters as love. 
 (How little our nearest and dearest friends know about 
 us \) How should I know anything ? I really had 
 got into the fanciful ways of some of the old maids of 
 my parish. Milverton was never so rude to me in his 
 life before : but the conversation ended by his pro- 
 testing that if I were right, the thing must be put a
 
 144 FKIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 stop to — that the idea of a young and beautiful girl 
 throwing her affections away upon a faded widower, 
 like himself, was absurd. Was she not admired by so 
 and so, and so and so, dashing young guardsmen, who 
 were fitted for her ; and there was that young Hartley, 
 who owned half the county, why could not he take a 
 fancy to her and she to him — an excellent young 
 fellow who was always coming to consult him about 
 model-cottages. How obtuse in such matters we all 
 are ! I had long seen that Hartley came for a model- 
 wife, and with that purpose was endeavouring to win 
 all possible favour with Milverton ; and I had also 
 seen that Blanche steadily avoided Mr. Hartley. His 
 last words to me were, " I will prove to you that your 
 ideas in this matter are as absurd as Miss Crump's 
 (the arch-gossip in our village) were on a certain 
 occasion about yourself;" and then he quoted a bit 
 from Philip Van Artrcelde: — 
 
 " The world, when men and women meet, 
 Is rich in sage remark, nor stints to strew 
 With roses and with myrtle fields of death." 
 
 To which I replied, " Eut after all the world was right, 
 for Philip Van Artevelde did love Elena." 
 
 By and by, however, as the days wore on, I could 
 not help noticing that Milverton's investigations, what- 
 ever was the nature of them, did not seem to lead to
 
 CRITICISM. 145 
 
 " a stop being put to it." On the contrary, he began 
 to be more attentive to her ; asked her opinion upon 
 matters which she could not possibly understand ; and 
 one day, after returning from a long walk with her 
 which I hoped would lead to something decisive, he 
 told us that Blanche had a great deal more in her than 
 most people supposed, and that she was becoming an 
 excellent companion. Mildred and I secretly won- 
 dered how Blanche contrived to put in the yeses and 
 the noes in the right places ; for we were sure she did 
 not venture further out of her depth than an occasional 
 affirmative or negative : but still she was, no doubt, a 
 very agreeable companion. 
 
 We continued our wanderings, without there being 
 much on my part to chronicle. One conversation, 
 however, I took notes of. It was at that unrivalled 
 town, Nuremberg — the only town, perhaps, in Europe 
 where there is a thorough harmony in the buildings, 
 and where even the modern parts seem to have grown 
 up in reverent resemblance to the ancient, as if lath 
 and plaster and composition, dominant enough else- 
 where, were things unknown to the Nuremberghers. 
 We were all sitting on a height, just above Albert 
 Durer's house, near the fortress, whence you can see 
 the wide expanse of surrounding country. 
 
 We talked of Albert Diirer and his tiresome wife, 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] K
 
 146 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 and of works of art, and of the criticisms upon them, 
 until we found ourselves in a discussion on criticism 
 generally. Milverton made some remarks which I 
 could not remember at the time, but which he after- 
 wards, at my request, furnished me with in writing. 
 
 COMPARATIVELY easy would be the work of 
 criticising, and comparatively small the mischief 
 done by injudicious critics, if it were finished works 
 alone that were chiefly subjected to criticism. There 
 are some few things in life that appear to be complete, 
 and so far fit for criticism, such as a picture, a book, 
 a statue, a form of government, or an action of which 
 you know all the actors (how rare, by the way, this 
 is !), and the times, places, and circumstances of the 
 action. 
 
 But the greater part of what is brought before you 
 in the course of the day is incomplete and continuous. 
 You cannot get round it, you cannot look at it as a 
 whole, or weigh it in its completeness. Take any con- 
 tinuous transaction at some point of its continuity, 
 — and what do you know about it? It requires the 
 highest calculi of the mathematician to discover from 
 a small portion of a curve submitted to him the law
 
 CRITICISM. 147 
 
 and the nature of the curve. Mr. Babbage's calculat- 
 ing machine, after grinding out numbers which appa- 
 rently proceed according to a certain order, suddenly 
 produces a number, or numbers, of another order, 
 though there is no change in the machine, or in the 
 setting of it. 
 
 The above instances are connected with inanimate 
 matter : the difficulty is complicated beyond measure 
 when life enters into it. A piece of spider filament 
 gives you but a small idea of the web which is 
 to follow; and the insect larva yields but a slight 
 indication, and that only to the scientific mind, of 
 the perfected imago which is eventually to break into 
 being. 
 
 Again, and carrying the argument further, when you 
 rise from insects up to men and attempt to criticise 
 their proceedings, you must remember that the doer 
 is not always good at explanation. Even when he 
 can explain, perhaps he has no time to do so ; and 
 besides, when he can explain and has time, he may be 
 prevented from explaining by discretion, by reserve, 
 or by the impossibility of telling all the story. I have 
 always thought that the most foolish men would have 
 a great deal to say in behalf of their folly, if they 
 could tell us all of it. Be that as it may, at any rate 
 we must beware of criticising the half-effaced, the con-
 
 14S FJRIEiYDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 tinuous, the incomplete, as if it were a rounded and 
 visible whole. The most inane of critics have some 
 dim idea of this when they go into an artist's studio, 
 and make remarks upon unfinished works. Even they 
 cannot help saying, " But perhaps this thing, which I 
 object to, will have a different appearance when you 
 have finished the picture." Now, it is not often we 
 are admitted to see a picture so unfinished as the 
 character of any great man remains in history; or 
 indeed, as unfinished as the character of any living 
 man should appear to us, considering the rough and 
 careless way in which we mostly come to conclusions 
 upon it. 
 
 That part of criticism which consists of comments 
 upon the conduct of others, is where critics and com- 
 mentators are most likely to be utterly deceived. 
 You do not want much converse with a man to be 
 able to judge pretty fairly about his behaviour. A 
 man of fine manners is discerned at once to be a 
 man of fine manners. You do not want to hear a 
 man tell more than two or three anecdotes in order 
 to decide whether he is a good narrator. One touch 
 of humorousness betrays " a fellow of infinite humour.'' 
 A bore seldom ceases to be a bore in any half-hour's 
 conversation. Sitting but once with a man in a com-
 
 CRITICISM. 149 
 
 mittee, or on a council, may enable you to discover 
 whether he is a just person or not. Cut when you 
 come to decide upon a man's conduct, there is often 
 some little circumstance or other, which, if once 
 known to you, would change the whole current of 
 your thought about him, and cause you to start back 
 with horror at the rash judgments you have been pro- 
 nouncing upon him. You suppose him to be mean, 
 and he is very poor, — a poverty caused by undis- 
 covered generosity. A case of that kind came to my 
 knowledge only three weeks ago. A friend of mine 
 came to me, and, with penitence, confessed to me 
 how he had misjudged another friend, whom he had 
 been condemning in conversations with me for years. 
 "I have long ridiculed that man," he said, "for his 
 extreme parsimony, and I now find that he is penni- 
 less, having made the most generous efforts to save 
 another friend from ruin." One such instance as that 
 — and a man of much worldly experience could 
 probably tell us of dozens — should make us cautious 
 of pronouncing any judgment that we are not obliged 
 to pronounce upon men's conduct. It is a curious 
 thing, but if you had asked me, as regards the instance 
 I have just quoted, whether the man unjustly con- 
 demned by his friend was a generous person or not, 
 I should have said at once that he was, as he had a
 
 150 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 generous look, and a generous manner : but there was 
 no standing up against the instances brought forward 
 of a ludicrous and unkind parsimony on his part. 
 Yet, note the real and lofty generosity in never 
 explaining why he could not subscribe to this or to 
 that. Depend upon it we are mostly doing a long- 
 sighted as well as a kind thing when we decline to 
 pronounce upon other men's conduct, and when we 
 endeavour to reserve our judgment, let appearances be 
 ever so greatly against them. 
 
 In discussing criticism, I think that there is one 
 circumstance for which there is hardly ever sufficient 
 allowance made on behalf of the thing or the person 
 criticised. The comments are made at leisure, after 
 due deliberation, without much pressure of respon- 
 sibility, upon things which were done in a hurry, at 
 a moment of fatigue, amidst the pressure of other 
 business, and when a resolve of some kind had to 
 be taken at the instant. Consider, for instance, the 
 office of a minister of State. There are, perhaps, 
 thirty or forty letters to be written by the minister, 
 conveying determination of some importance, in the 
 course of a single day. The same pressure occurs 
 in a merchant's business, or in the daily labour of 
 any professional man. One out of many hundreds
 
 CRITICISM. 151 
 
 of such transactions comes to light, perhaps in an 
 unfavourable manner ; and those who choose to 
 comment upon it, do so at their leisure, with plenty 
 of deliberation, and often with some knowledge of 
 what has been the result of the transaction they 
 criticise. They are apt to forget that the person 
 criticised was placed in very different circumstances 
 from themselves ; and it requires a great exercise of 
 their imagination to throw themselves into his position 
 before they begin to comment. 
 
 Mr. Emerson, I think, has observed how mean, 
 trivial, and ludicrous the details of most lawsuits 
 appear when they are brought into the full light of 
 discussion in open court. A similar remark may be 
 made as regards all transactions that come within the 
 glare of extreme publicity. Human affairs are not 
 conducted in such a way as to bear this publicity. 
 And if it were to be general, men would feel like 
 bees working in a glass hive (only the bees have no 
 newspapers, nor are subject to any comment which 
 they can understand) ; and, indeed, a more alarming 
 simile might be adopted, for the casual transactions 
 of even unimportant men are sometimes exposed to 
 a magnifying power like that of the solar microscope, 
 which can make a small insect appear a hideous 
 monster.
 
 152 FKIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 It is for the above reasons, and for others like 
 them, that the press should be very careful to restrict 
 itself within due limits in commenting upon trans- 
 actions of a thoroughly private character. Otherwise 
 great cruelty may be heedlessly committed. Some 
 unfortunate individual, from hurry, thoughtlessness, or 
 over-softness of disposition, confides in a very foolish 
 manner, and is egregiously imposed upon. It may 
 be fair that some punishment should come for this, 
 but not such a punishment as being commented 
 upon, and held up to ridicule before the eyes of 
 hundreds of thousands of readers, as happens if the 
 transaction is made the subject of a leading article 
 in a leading journal. Surely, that censorship of the 
 press, which is, perhaps, the only censorship possible 
 in our time and country, the censorship of discretion 
 and kindness in a really able editor, should be 
 exercised on such an occasion ; and, at the risk of 
 omitting an amusing article now and then, an editor 
 should severely confine his writers to commenting 
 upon what is justly and fitly public, not that which is 
 accidentally public. Of course the slightest exercise 
 of Christianity would induce an editor to think how 
 little he would like himself, if he had committed some 
 small blunder or indiscretion, or even some crime, to 
 have it magnified and lectured about in the manner
 
 CRITICISM. 153 
 
 in which a bee's wing is exhibited by the aid of the 
 solar microscope before referred to, and all its 
 minutiae commented upon by a fluent, popular 
 lecturer. We do not find, moreover, that severe 
 critics, when their turn comes to have their shadow 
 set dancing on the white sheet in the lecture-room, 
 have attained that extreme indifference to concen- 
 trated solar light and scientific commenting, which 
 should make them unable to imagine what are the 
 sensations of other men when exhibited to the staring 
 public in this remorseless fashion. 
 
 There is another consideration which, if kept well 
 in mind, would infuse a higher tone into criticism, 
 than, I think, it has ever had, and which would 
 assuredly inspire it with some generosity. It is this : 
 that, for the most part, there can be no reply. You 
 criticise the dead — "the silent ones," as they have 
 well been called, — what need I say more on their 
 part ? You criticise the absent ; and, unless the 
 proverbs of the world have much belied the world, 
 the absent find but few defenders. You criticise the 
 lofty and the powerful ; and for them to reply would 
 certainly be a lowering of themselves, and a task 
 which they can seldom undertake. The soot-bearer 
 jostles against the wearer of the silken gown : the
 
 154 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 wearer of the silken gown cannot retaliate in kind. 
 An eminent person is always at the mercy of the 
 scurrilous. Again, you criticise the busy ; and, as I 
 said before, they have no time to answer you. You 
 criticise those who are involved with others in long 
 and difficult transactions, and they cannot reply with- 
 out the consent of those others, or without revealing 
 what they ought not to reveal. They must bear 
 whatever blows you are pleased to inflict upon them. 
 You criticise the great man, or the great work, and it 
 is not in the nature of him, or it, to furnish any 
 answer to you. It stands out as a stern fact, as a 
 lighthouse on a stormy coast, and must endure 
 the buffets of the waves without any attempt at 
 retaliation. 
 
 In making these remarks upon criticism one can 
 have no fear of unreasonably diminishing it. There 
 will always be enough criticism in a refined and 
 civilized world. What a great part it does perform 
 is known to all men. What a still greater it might 
 perform is appreciated by those who would have it 
 blended with knowledge, governed by self-restraint, 
 and enlightened by charity. Every day its functions 
 become more ample, because in this varied world 
 there are so many subjects which not even the highest
 
 CRITICISM. 155 
 
 and most laborious intellect can know anything about 
 from direct information, and as regards which it must 
 be content to gain its opinions from others who are 
 supposed to be peculiarly instructed. It is especially 
 to be noticed, that in giving summaries of works, or 
 transactions, lies the most pregnant and most import- 
 ant part of criticism ; and this work, which is in fact 
 historical writing, will be admitted by every- one who 
 has tried to accomplish it, to require a great amount 
 of skill, impartiality, and judgment. The critic who 
 brings these qualities to bear upon the ordinary trans 
 actions of life — the daily critic in a newspaper, for 
 instance — is a large benefactor of mankind, and really 
 saves the world an immensity of trouble. To elevate 
 the function of criticism, to restrain it within due 
 limits, but not to carp at it, or depreciate it, is the 
 object which I have had in addressing these few 
 remarks to the accomplished circle of critics whom I 
 see around me. 
 
 All that has been said above of criticism and of 
 comment applies with still more force to meddling, 
 which is often but bad criticism developed into 
 injudicious action.
 
 156 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Ellesmere admitted that criticism was very bad, but 
 maintained that it was good enough in general for the 
 works criticised. From this point I think I can give 
 the conversation pretty accurately. 
 
 Milverton. I am thinking more of the critics them- 
 selves than of the works of the people they criticise. I 
 suspect that the habit of criticising destroys productive 
 energy in the man who gives himself up to criticising ; 
 and I believe that even a bad motive for criticising is 
 perhaps less injurious to the mental powers than the 
 habit of looking out always, as you read or observe, for 
 what you shall say about it. In the one case a man does 
 a base thing, but not irremediable as regards himself. 
 He says to himself, " I hate this other man, and I will 
 write him down : " but when he gets into the habit of 
 shallow unthinking criticism, he "says to himself, " Lo ! I 
 know this matter, and all other matters, and I can talk or 
 write wisely about them on the shortest possible notice " 
 — whereas he knows nothing — poor man ! 
 
 Dunsford. Well, I am always very angry when I see 
 a learned work, which I know must have cost the author 
 years of labour and research, discussed in the most flip- 
 pant manner, perhaps a few days after it has appeared. 
 
 Milvertoti. Yes : it is vexatious that the worst critics 
 generally speak out first, and forestall the market of 
 opinion. But as is natural with you, Dunsford, when one 
 talks of criticism, your imagination always flies to the 
 criticism on books, which is really a small and unim- 
 portant part of criticism. Even the criticisms on public
 
 CRITICISM. 157 
 
 men and public measures, often unjust enough, Heaven 
 knows, are but a small and insignificant part of criticism, 
 taken generally. It is the daily criticism, household 
 criticism, if I may so call it, that is so important ; and 
 that might, for the most part, be so beneficially abridged. 
 Human motives are so difficult to get at : we know so 
 little about each other, that the endless comment which 
 goes on must be irrelevant. There may be too much 
 even of the most innocent comment ; and I think I have 
 observed that all the higher natures are much averse 
 from commenting upon others' character or conduct, and 
 that this aversion grows stronger as they grow older and 
 wiser. 
 
 Ellesmere. You would delight, Milverton, in a story 
 which Lord John Russell has told once or twice in the 
 House of Commons, about the great Conde and Cardinal 
 de Retz. Conde" comes in and finds the Cardinal's table 
 covered with pamphlets on both sides, making the vilest 
 accusations against both sides. The Cardinal enters : 
 the Prince points to the pamphlets and says, " These 
 wretches think that we do all that they would do if they 
 were in our places." 
 
 Milverton. Well. I want to revert to my first point, 
 namely, the non-productiveness of those who get into the 
 habit of over-criticising ; and for an example, I shall 
 bring you down from cardinals and princes to very 
 humble people. There are two farmers in my neighbour- 
 hood. One is an excellent critic, and the other a very 
 good farmer. Farmer Wilkins is the critic, farmer Hodge 
 the good farmer. There was lately a piece of land to be 
 let, or sold, close to me. Wilkins was profound in his
 
 158 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 criticisms upon it. " It had always been rated very low 
 in the parish books. He had heard his father say, no 
 man could get a living from it. If it were worth any- 
 thing why was it to be let or sold now ? " He was great 
 in detail. " He had counted twenty-seven docks in one 
 square yard of it. It might be next to a road, but that 
 road led to nowhere." And so he went on. I began to 
 feel a great contempt for this unfortunate bit of land. 
 The next day, I saw farmer Hodge upon it, and I resolved 
 to hear what he had to say. He took up a bit of the earth, 
 and he crumbled it in his hand, and looked about him 
 vaguely, and then he said : — " It be out of heart, sure-ly, 
 but not worse than my bit at Dragmire. I do think I'll 
 take to 'un, and see what can be done." This was three 
 or four years ago. You should see now the rich waving 
 crops that there are ; but farmer Wilkins goes on criti- 
 cising with his accustomed ability, and almost proves to 
 me, with the crops before my eyes, that the whole thing 
 is a failure. You know great critics never retract their 
 sentences of condemnation. 
 
 Ellesmcre. These farmers are mythical. In this benign 
 assembly I am always set down as the critic. It is farmer 
 Ellesmere and farmer Milverton that are really spoken 
 of; and I, for one, shall believe in farmer Milverton's 
 waving crops when I see them, and not one moment 
 before. Besides, if I see the grain crops I shall be incre- 
 dulous as to turnips ; and turnips are the soul of good 
 husbandry, as people tell me. 
 
 Milverton. Well, then, you shall have a story about 
 two old ladies — oh no, not old ladies, but spinsters of a 
 certain age, who live in Dunsford's parish. They are
 
 CRITICISM. 
 
 159 
 
 Miss Strachey and Miss Hartopp. Miss Strachey is the 
 busy, benevolent person of the parish ; and without her I 
 am sure I do not know what the poor would do for soup 
 and flannel and many other little commodities. In this 
 case the doer and the critic are great friends. Miss 
 Hartopp sits in her chair all daylong, reads many books, 
 is dimly suspected of knowledge in political economy, but 
 is victimized, like the rest of us, by Miss Strachey. How- 
 ever, the good lady, — I mean the victimized one,— has her 
 pleasure in proving that everything her friend does is 
 wrong, and must lead to bad consequences. " You really 
 should speak to her, Mr. Milverton, and prove to her that 
 this selling of flannel below the cost price is quite out of 
 all principle." 
 
 Accordingly, with the greatest gravity, I call upon 
 Miss Strachey, and prove to her, quoting largely from 
 Adam Smith, Mill, Ricardo, and other authorities, that 
 she is a dangerous woman ; and that I am sent by her 
 particular friend Miss Hartopp, to recall her from the 
 evil tenor of her ways. " Dear heart alive"— that is one 
 of her favourite expressions — " I am sure that if any of 
 these good gentlemen knew our parish as well as I do, 
 they would not be cross with me. Why, what would 
 Betty Saunders have done with her seven children this 
 cold winter without the soup-kitchen and the blanket 
 fund ? but that reminds me I have not got Miss Hartopp's 
 subscription to the blanket fund. You don't think I am 
 wrong, do you, Mr. Milverton? It is only one of your 
 odd ways, coming and talking to me in this fashion. 
 That's what you gentlemen call being ironical, is it 
 not?"
 
 I Go FRIEVDS I.V COUNCIL. 
 
 Now it does not do to be ironical with ladies, so I 
 said at once, " Rightly understood, these political econo- 
 mists, I dare say, are with you : if not, hang them, and 
 hang the critics too. By the way, don't let me detain 
 you from calling on Miss Hartopp for her subscription. 
 She will be particularly liberal after having delivered 
 her lecture on political economy, as she always is. Good 
 morning." 
 
 Ellesmcre. I suspect again it is but Miss Matilda 
 Milverton and Miss Tabitha Ellesmere that are the 
 principal persons in the story. I have no doubt that 
 if there be such a person as Miss Hartopp, she is quite 
 in the right, and that Dunsford's parish is demoralized 
 by flannel. But Milverton, like all authors, is manifestly 
 sore on the subject of criticism. 
 
 Milverton. Indeed, I am not. I am like Miss 
 Strachey : I go on never minding, and when I am par- 
 ticularly attacked, I exclaim as she does, " Dear heart 
 alive, perhaps the good gentlemen would be with me if 
 they knew our parish as well as I do." And, besides, 
 seriously speaking, I am penetrated with an ever-present 
 sense of the difference of human beings, each from all the 
 rest. I am not surprised, therefore, or shocked when 
 people differ from me, and honestly blame me. I should 
 be very much astonished if they did not. I remember 
 though, once, to have been considerably startled by the 
 effect of some hostile criticism. I cannot tell you what 
 publication it was in, but it represented me as an im- 
 postor, a fool, a plagiarist, and a scoundrel. The editor 
 had taken particular care to send it to me, and it came at 
 breakfast time. Now every man who has any observa-
 
 CRITICISM. iGi 
 
 tion knows what a poor and erring creature he is, and he 
 is rather pleased and flattered at seeing that other people 
 have not got hold of the right things to say against him. 
 I was therefore rather tickled and pleased at this abuse 
 than otherwise. I laughed heartily, and tossed the paper 
 over to the girls. I remember Miss Blanche failed to 
 perceive the joke. Women always get into a rage when 
 those theyjove — I mean when those they have any regard 
 for — are attacked. 
 
 Blanche. I wish we had him here ! 
 
 Ellesmere. If anybody supposes that that is an aspira- 
 tion of pure benevolence on the part of Miss Blanche, he 
 is mistaken. 
 
 Milverton. To continue my story. It was the evening 
 of the same day when I happened to notice Walter 
 reading most intently at the tea-table. He is not here, 
 is he ? 
 
 Dunsford. No : he has run off to have a nearer look 
 at the soldiers. 
 
 Milverton. I watched the boy for some minutes, 
 noticed his flushed cheek, but thought with pleasure that 
 the power of concentrating his attention is the very thing 
 I long to see in him. It makes the great difference 
 between men's capacities, this power. Still, I said to 
 myself, I must interrupt him. He was then in delicate 
 health. I stole softly behind the boy, smoothed his hair, 
 and looked down on what he was reading, with the 
 intention of asking a question and breaking the thread of 
 his thoughts. It was this stupid review or newspaper 
 that the boy had got hold of; and he was intently 
 studying the worst part of the abuse that had been 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] L
 
 1 62 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 lavished on his father. I don't know how it was ; but 
 somehow or other this shocked mc a little. Of course 
 the child would indignantly repel the accusations made 
 against me ; but I thought to myself the bloom of his 
 regard would gradually be rubbed off. The children of 
 the neighbouring squires grow up in profound and undis- 
 turbed belief in their fathers 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, I don't know ; I don't think Master 
 Walter's faith in you is shaken yet. I know I have to feel 
 the sharpness of his knuckles whenever I attack you. 
 
 Milverton. Of course the writer of that abuse would 
 say, and with some justice: — "This is your proper 
 punishment for being a thief and a scoundrel." I reply, 
 ' ; At least, my friend, you ought to be very sure of the 
 thieving and the scoundrelism of the man before you 
 write down those accusations against him which are 
 likely to be read by those who are nearest and dearest to 
 him." I know, that I said to myself, I will be more 
 careful even than I have been in making railing accu- 
 sations against anybody. It is a little incident from 
 which I derived some good, and perhaps, after all, have 
 much to thank the writer for. 
 
 Blanche. I only say I wish we had him here ! 
 
 Ellesmere. A beautiful quality in women is their 
 promptness to forgive. 
 
 But, to return to the original subject, for you have 
 wandered off from criticism to calumny. Criticism is 
 but a child compared with calumny : mere bows and 
 arrows to artillery. 
 
 Milverton. I am not so sure of that. I have some- 
 thing to say about calumny that I meant to have said to
 
 CRITICISM. 163 
 
 you the other day when some one was making a great 
 fuss about being calumniated. That calumny is great, I 
 admit. No one, indeed, can well exaggerate her power ; 
 or follow out her busy ways and singular ingenuity 
 without mixed feelings of awe and admiration. How 
 clever she is, for instance, in making use of dull, ignorant, 
 and idle people, using them as the conduits to conduct, 
 and the feeders to multiply the accidental remarks and 
 jokes and malice of cleverer people, so that she fertilizes 
 the whole groundwork of society with injurious reports, 
 which cannot be well contradicted about her victims. 
 Let any transaction be as white as a hound's tooth, she 
 can so adroitly discolour it, that the original whiteness 
 may never be restored. But any description that I 
 could give of her would be poor compared with what 
 Beaumarchais, who understood her better than any one 
 else, has said. 
 
 Ellesmerc. I do not recollect the passage. 
 
 Milverton. " La calomnie, monsieur ? Vous ne savez 
 guere ce que vous de'daignez ; j'ai vu les plus honnetes 
 gens pres d'en etre accables. Croyez qu'il n'y a pas de 
 plate mechancete, pas d'horreurs, pas de conte absurde> 
 qu'on ne fasse adopter aux oisifs d'une grande ville en s'y 
 prenant bien ; et nous avons ici des gens d'une adresse 
 . . . . ! D'abord un bruit leger, rasant le sol comme 
 hirondelle avant l'orage, pianissimo murmure et file et 
 seme en courant le trait empoisonne\ Telle bouche le 
 recueille, et piano, piano vous le glisse en l'oreille adroite- 
 ment. Le mal est fait, il germe, il rampe, il chemine, et 
 rinforzando de bouche en bouche il va le diable ; puis, 
 tout-a-coup, ne sais comment, vous voyez calomnie se
 
 1 64 FRIENDS IN CO [INCH. 
 
 dresser, siffler, s'enflcr, grandir a vue d'ceil. Elle s'elance, 
 dtend son vol, tourbillonne, enveloppe, arrache, entraine, 
 delate, et tonne ; et devient, grace au ciel, un cri general 
 un crescendo public, un chorus univcrsel de haine et de 
 proscription. Que diable y resisterait ?" 
 
 I have myself said sharp things against calumny, 
 though not worthy to be mentioned on the same day 
 with this passage from Beaumarchais ; but in my heart 
 of hearts, I think I have wronged her, and I repent me of 
 what I have said. Calumny herself has been a most 
 calumniated " party," to use the mercantile slang word of 
 the day, and it is time that something should be said in 
 her behalf. 
 
 Dunsford. Really, Milverton, this seems very para- 
 doxical — not to say sophistical. 
 
 Ellesmere. I like it. I believe in it. Let us give three 
 cheers for calumny. 
 
 Milverton. See the good that she has done : consider 
 the comfort she has been to mankind. She makes men 
 happy by giving them a grievance. Suppose she were not 
 calumny, but truth ! Even the worst of us, forgetting what 
 might truly be said against us, rejoice in the fact that the 
 things that are said are for the most part calumnious. 
 The bandit, to whom seventeen murders are charged, 
 admits that he has had three or four "accidents," but 
 appeals to his wife whether he is not a calumniated man, 
 and feels that society has done him a great wrong in 
 charging the whole seventeen upon him. 
 
 Now consider the moon. We began by knowing nothing 
 of her merits or demerits. She was highly lauded by poets ;
 
 » CRITICISM. 165 
 
 but she was very often deeply calumniated. Fickle, 
 changeful, inconstant, were adjectives often applied to her. 
 Strange, and not very creditable stories were invented about 
 her amours. Then comes the astronomer. He tells us, it 
 is true, of her merits and uses, but he takes a great deal of 
 the poetry away from her. He treats her, perhaps, as a 
 fragment split off from the earth : he pries into her adust 
 surface of extinct volcanoes ; and, altogether, the moon, I 
 imagine, would rather have been calumniated as fickle? 
 amorous, inconstant, than truthfully mapped out by the 
 astronomer royal. Depend upon it, there is not one of us 
 who will bear as much looking into as the moon, and who 
 had not better be contented with the calumnies uttered 
 about him than run any risk of the truth being noised 
 about. Besides, we all enjoy the advantage of having a 
 grievance. 
 
 Ellesmere. I quite admit that last sentiment. A man 
 without a grievance is a poor, naked creature. A rich man 
 who has not had his losses ; a politician who has been 
 rightly placed, and never misunderstood ; a lawyer or a 
 divine who has met with promotion exactly at the right 
 time ; an inventor who has really had his invention " taken 
 into due consideration " by official persons ; a patriot who 
 has never been in prison : — miserable men, all of them. 
 And then, if calumny overlooks them, there is no chance 
 of their getting a good grievance. I begin to be alive to 
 the huge merits of calumny. Really, Milverton is a 
 sensible man, sometimes. 
 
 Milverton. I will give you now one of the most curious 
 instances of calumny I ever met with. It is about a man 
 who lived many hundred years ago, an old Pope, John the
 
 1 66 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Twenty-Second. When I was a youth, I remember 
 reading somewhere that the said John the Twenty- 
 Second put people to death for being poor. This 
 dwelt in my mind ; I thought to myself, this really was a 
 strong measure on the part of the head of the Christian 
 Church. Long afterwards I happened to get a glimpse 
 of what was the origin of the story. Sundry monastic 
 persons took it into their heads that they could not by 
 any possibility hold property. The question was referred 
 to the Pope. He decided that they could hold property. 
 A raging controversy took place. No doubt some of these 
 people were delivered over to the secular arm, but it was 
 for denying the power of the Pope, and not for being poor. 
 
 Ellesmere. John the Twenty-Second ! What a vista of 
 Popes John it gives us ; and I know nothing about them. 
 I never remember their right names. I could not tell 
 you, for instance, which Gregory it was who forbade the 
 marriage of the clergy. A subtle man that, and wise in 
 his generation. If there had been a Mrs. Thomas a 
 Becket, the Constitutions of Clarendon would have been 
 adopted easily enough ; at least I suspect so. All fathers of 
 families are very malleable, if not absolutely unprincipled. 
 Milverton would rob a church, or, at least, a chapel, in 
 order to get Walter up a step in some profession. We 
 bachelors are the only men in the world who are firm in 
 principle and perfectly virtuous. We can afford to be so ; 
 the others can not. What a House of Commons it would 
 be, if it were elected by bachelors only ! In the next 
 Reform Bill I shall propose taking away the power of 
 voting from all married men, the fathers of families. 
 
 But to return to your story. Pope John the Twenty-
 
 CRITICISM. 167 
 
 Second must have been a happy man. That was a grand 
 calumny ; just the thing one would like to have said of 
 one if one were perfectly innocent. I have always fancied 
 that I should like to have a striking calumny current 
 about myself, because I should then see who among my 
 friends would stand by me through it. Besides, I am too 
 much asked out to dinner now, and it would thin off the 
 invitations mightily. Our friend Pontefract would invite 
 me to breakfast ; and Milverton, believing in the calumny, 
 would still ask me down to Worth-Ashton. The rest of 
 the world would fight shy of me ; but I should not care 
 much for that. Dunsford would write a sermon against 
 me, and I should not care very much for that. But I am a 
 hardened wretch. And now let us go to dinner, for it is 
 about the time that decent people are getting their break- 
 fast in England, and, consequently, rather late for the dinner 
 at a German table-cfhote. We have talked so much that I 
 am immensely hungry. There is nothing like talking to 
 ensure an appetite. All great talkers are great eaters. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Before this discussion ends, I must 
 beg leave to say my say about it ; and that is, that you 
 have all shown a want of knowledge of the world, and 
 treated the matter a great deal too gravely. A large part 
 of hostile criticism is but jubilant flippancy. 
 
 Ellesmere {aside to me). The sombre fat man means 
 this for a hit at me. The bear has disliked the monkey 
 from time immemorial. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. But how can it be otherwise ? How 
 difficult it is to praise and to amuse at the same time. 
 Any monkey tricks [Ellesmere. I told you so.] are 
 amusing in attack, or in dispraise : but let the most
 
 1 68 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 practised writer try to praise, or to estimate justly, or to 
 encourage, and he can hardly avoid becoming serious. Is 
 there such a thing as " smart " praise ? And " smartness " 
 is the right article for the market ; the one most eagerly 
 demanded, the most readily produced. All praise, Sir 
 John, is dull, except to the person praised, his wife, his 
 grown-up daughters, and perhaps one or two intimate and 
 loving friends. Such is mankind. I cannot help it. If 
 it were a question of voting, I should vote that laudation 
 should be as amusing as censure ; but it cannot be made 
 so, and there is an end of the matter. 
 
 Ellesmere. I should vote on the other side ; for if 
 praise were as amusing as censure, how we should be 
 inundated by the praise uttered in little cliques and knots 
 of men, of one another. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Puffing is not praise, Sir John, and 
 puffing may be made amusing. Do not answer me. If 
 we get into any controversy we shall be late for dinner, 
 and no goodness of controversy can make up for coldness 
 of soup.
 
 ( 1 69 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 We had wandered through a long gallery of statues. 
 Many of them were the statues of obscure men, but 
 this did not prevent Ellesmere, who was in a very 
 humorous mood, and acted as a sort of showman, 
 from giving us a minute account of their lives, 
 derived from what he saw in their countenances. 
 Ellesmere is practically fond of statues, because, as 
 he says, you can walk all round them ; whereas, he 
 adds, you cannot get at the back of a picture. Then, 
 he maintains, that the backs of men's heads are the 
 most important parts of their heads, and besides, he 
 says, men cannot screw them up into a hypocritical 
 shape. This is just the paradoxical way in which 
 Ellesmere loves to talk. From Ellesmere's biographies 
 we passed to biography in general. At the beginning 
 of the conversation Milverton did not do justice, I 
 think, to some of the great biographical works that 
 were mentioned. He seemed to have thought so 
 himself, from the following remark which he made ; at
 
 1 7 o FRIENDS IN CO UNCIL. 
 
 which point I take up the conversation, and from 
 which I can record it pretty accurately. 
 
 Milverton. I am afraid I am not a fair judge of bio- 
 graphy, I so much prefer to it the grand march of 
 history : I do not like to see men massacred by cares 
 and miseries in detail. 
 
 Ellesmcre. "Nothing like leather," says the cord- 
 wainer. 
 
 Milverton. Yes, I must own that as a student of 
 history I become more and more enamoured of the study. 
 I seldom read late at night, thinking it an injudicious 
 waste of life, but it was only the other night I found 
 myself getting on to the small hours over an old chronicle 
 which I have brought with me to study ; and I thought 
 to myself I was just like a boy over his first novel of 
 Walter Scott's, to devour which he has furtively lit his 
 candle after the rest of the house is gone to bed. 
 
 As for romance, what is there to be compared with the 
 history of the Popes ? Such works as Ranke and Dean 
 Milman have written are to the mature mind what the 
 Tales of the Genii are to the child. Now, you have a 
 man dragged from a hermit's cell, in which he cannot 
 stand upright, to be invested with the more than regal 
 tiara, and to be the potentate of potentates on the earth. 
 Then, from a Celestine the Fifth, who was forced into the 
 Popedom after the above fashion, you have a Boniface 
 the Eighth, one of the most accomplished men of his day, 
 who is not dragged to power, but by consummate art, 
 and by his dominating presence, grasps the Papacy with 
 anything but unwilling hands ; who, as the Romans said
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 171 
 
 of him, " came in like a fox, ruled liked a lion, died like a 
 dog." 
 
 What a supremely interesting business, age after age, 
 is the choice of a Pope. He who would understand 
 councils and learn how assemblages of men are swayed, 
 will always find ample materials in studying the choice of 
 Popes. Sometimes it was done in a day. Sometimes the 
 impatient world had to wait for two or three years .before 
 the conclave of cardinals could be forced into a decision. 
 What interests had to be conciliated, what fears dispelled, 
 what hopes evoked, while this choice was going on ; and 
 often, after all this turmoil, that which was unforeseen 
 and unschemed for prevailed in the college of cardinals 
 as it does in the merest parish meeting. 
 
 Then, again, you have not a dominant vein of cha- 
 racter, of one kind, which is to be seen in the long line 
 of princes, where " Amurath to Amurath succeeds," as in 
 our Plantagenets, our Tudors, or our Stuarts ; but you 
 have something far more interesting, a new character 
 brought in each time to see what he can make of ruling 
 this troubled world. Often utterly insecure in his own 
 turbulent capital, and obliged to flee from it, he is govern- 
 ing with a high hand, and with unabated claims for 
 dominion, the distant kingdoms of the earth. Age is 
 found to be no impediment to ambition or to vigour ; and 
 a Gregory the Ninth, at eighty years of age, is ready to 
 contest the palm of empire with an Emperor in his youth, 
 or in his prime. Other high priests, patriarchs of Con- 
 stantinople and the like, are great in their capitals ; but 
 their dominion dies away in distant circles, like the agita- 
 tion of water, each ring becoming fainter and fainter ;
 
 172 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 while in the Middle Ages the Pope's supremacy tends to 
 concentrate from without, from the distant to the near. 
 Never was the triumph of great ideas over mere physical 
 force so visible and so transcendent. 
 
 Ellesmere. 1 do not give up my Tales of the Genii, or 
 the Arabian Nights. 
 
 Milverton. Nor do I pretend to despise fiction. I am 
 voracious too over that ; but I will tell you a singular 
 pleasure that there is in history which is seldom attached 
 to fiction. You study the characters in a novel, and they 
 come to their end in it, and you do not meet with them 
 any more ; but in history, the same people reappear, 
 or the results of their doinys present themselves at 
 distant periods from their own times, and at last, after 
 some reading of history, you come to look at the principal 
 actors as a large family party. 
 
 J-'llesmere. Rather too large, I think, to be interesting. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I agree with Milverton. In different 
 histories you find the same man involved in different sets 
 of circumstances, and when you are reading about his 
 conduct in one of these sets, you have the pleasure of a 
 certain familiarity with him, and of contrasting his con- 
 duct under the differing circumstances. 
 
 Milverton, Yes : I have had experience of that, for 
 instance, in observing Charles the Fifth as a ruler of 
 colonies, and the same Charles as a European monarch. 
 A similar thing may be noticed of our own people. Eng- 
 land as a great colonial governor, England as a great 
 European state — and the various bearings of one position 
 upon the other, form an exceedingly interesting subject 
 for thought. Then, say what you like (and Ellesmere will
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 173 
 
 be sure to say something very unpleasant), there is a 
 satisfaction in reading about events that have happened, 
 or are presumed to have happened, of statements that are 
 true, or at least are meant to be true. 
 
 Ellcsmcre. I like to fancy what would happen to some 
 bulky tomes of history if they were written in a certain 
 magical ink, which, after a time, refused to hold lies, and 
 so all that was false would suddenly disappear. There 
 would be some blanks, eh, Milverton? A good many of 
 the adjectives and adverbs would vanish from every page. 
 Whole chapters assigned to explain the motives of the 
 principal actors, would present a very white appearance, 
 and would allow ample room for another set of motives to 
 be introduced by a new commentator, which after a time, 
 if they were written in the same ink, would also probably 
 in their turn disappear, giving room for a wholesome and 
 truthful blankness. 
 
 Milverton. In this respect history does not differ 
 much from the narratives of everyday life. We must 
 observe comment, and narrate, and must often make 
 huge mistakes in history as in daily life. Still it is a 
 noble effort of man to try and describe in the best way 
 he can what has happened in the world. All literature, as 
 Goethe says, is but a fragment of a fragment. 
 
 Ellesmere. If I were to make a confession about my 
 likings for literature, I should say, that I was fond of 
 fiction, that I did not dislike biography, that I could bear 
 a good deal of poetry in fine weather, and that I had 
 that respectful admiration for history, which is based 
 upon a distant acquaintanceship, and not injured by 
 over-familiarity.
 
 174 FRIENDS IX COUNCIL. 
 
 Law-cases, now, are very nice reading, combining 
 
 fiction and biography, and arising out of the most 
 touching and poetical circumstances of human life — out 
 of marriage settlements, for example. 
 
 Milverton. Talking of biographies, you behold that 
 boy at his favourite pastime, endeavouring to make clucks 
 and drakes, but the stream is too strong for him. There 
 you see the greatest biographer of the coming age. 
 Notable men would even now begin to cultivate his 
 acquaintance in the hopes of being biographized by him, 
 if they knew as much as I know about his biographical 
 powers. 
 
 Ellesmere. So Walter is a genius after all. I knew he 
 could throw a stone remarkably well, but I did not know 
 he was a genius. 
 
 Dunsford. Milverton did not say he was a genius, but 
 that he would become a good biographer. 
 
 Milverton. Thank you, Dunsford : Ellesmere is always 
 keeping other people to the point. But you shall judge 
 for yourselves of Walter's capacity as a biographer. Ever 
 since Dunsford has chronicled our conversations, Elles- 
 mere, we have become in some measure famous, or rather 
 notorious. I cannot say we are much obliged to him for 
 it, but so it is. I dare say, Ellesmere, that you are often 
 applied to for a short sketch of your life. 
 
 I-lllesmcre. Oh yes, very often. 
 
 Milverton. I, too, sometimes have that honour inflicted 
 upon me. Well, during Walter's last holidays, he heard 
 me read out one morning at breakfast-time such an 
 application. After breakfast he took a walk with me. I 
 saw something was on the boy's mind. At last he suddenly
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 175 
 
 asked me, "Do sons often write the lives of fathers?" — 
 " Often," I replied, "but I do not think they are the best 
 kind of biographers, for you see, Walter, sons cannot well 
 tell the faults and weaknesses of their fathers, and so filial 
 biographies are often rather insipid performances." — " I 
 don't know about that," he said, " I think I could write 
 yours. I have made it already into chapters." — " Now 
 then, my boy," I said, "begin it : let us have the. outline 
 at least." Walter then commenced his biography. 
 
 " The first chapter," he said, " should be you and I and 
 Henry walking amongst the trees and settling which 
 should be cut down, and which should be transplanted." 
 ■ — " A very pretty chapter," I said, " and a great deal 
 might be made of it." — "The second chapter," he con- 
 tinued, "should be your going to the farm, and talking to 
 the pigs." — "Also a very good chapter, my dear." — "The 
 third chapter," he said, after a little thought, " should be 
 your friends. I would describe them all, and what they 
 could do." There you see, Ellesmere, you would come in 
 largely, especially as to what you could do. "An excellent 
 chapter," I exclaimed, and then of course I broke out into 
 some paternal admonition about the choice of friends, 
 which I know will have no effect whatever ; but still one 
 cannot help uttering these paternal admonitions. " Now 
 then," I said, "for chapter four." Here Walter paused, 
 and looked about him vaguely for a minute or two. At 
 length he seemed to have got hold of the right idea, for 
 he burst out with the words, " My going back to school ; " 
 and that, it seemed, was to be the end of the biography. 
 
 Now, was there ever so honest a biographer? His 
 going back to school was the "be-all and end-all here"
 
 176 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 with him, and he resolved it should be the same with his 
 hero, and with everybody concerned in the story. 
 
 Then see what a pleasant biographer the boy is ! He 
 does not drag his hero down through the vale of life, 
 amidst declining fortune, breaking health, dwindling 
 away of friends, and the usual dreariness of the last few 
 stages. Neither does the biography end with the death of 
 his hero ; and. by the way, it is not very pleasant to have 
 one's children contemplating one's death, even for the 
 sake of writing one's life ; but the biographer brings the 
 adventures of his hero to an end by his own going back 
 to school. How delightful it would be if most biographers 
 planned their works after Walter's fashion : just gave a 
 picture of their hero at his farm, or his business ; then 
 at his pleasure, as Walter brought me amongst my trees ; 
 then, to show what manner of man he was, gave some 
 description of his friends ; and concluded by giving an 
 account of their own going back to school — a conclusion 
 that is greatly to be desired for many of them. 
 
 You will observe that he said nothing about the publica- 
 tion of letters, or of intimate conversations. 
 
 Ellcsmcrc. 1 admire the boy amazingly. Henceforth 
 I shall not call you Leonard Milverton, but Walter 
 Milvcrton's, the great biographer's, father. Moreover, he 
 shall write my life ; and I will entrust him with all the 
 correspondence I have kept, which will consist of two or 
 three invitations to dinner that by some chance have 
 escaped burning with the rest of my letters. Meanwhile, 
 I will go and assist him in throwing stones. I am a 
 greater "dab," as he calls it, at that than he is ; and I do 
 hope this will be mentioned in some one of the four
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 177 
 
 chapters which he may condescend to write about his 
 father or myself. 
 
 A thought occurs to me. What if we were to go a little 
 lower down in the creation than a boy ? What if we were 
 to choose a dog as a biographer? Depend upon it Fixer 
 takes a just view of all our characters : a sound, hearty, 
 English bull-dogian view. I forsake Walter Milverton ; 
 and if my life is to be written at all, it shall be written by 
 Fixer. 
 
 Here the clog being looked at by all of us, and 
 conscious that he was being talked of, set up a melan- 
 choly howl, then went up to Milverton, put his fore- 
 paws upon his knees, and tried to lick his face. 
 
 Ellesmere. The dog says, as plainly as dog-language 
 can say, that all biography is odious to him. (Fixer, I am 
 inclined to be of your opinion) ; but he adds, like a faithful 
 creature as he is, that if he must write anybody's life, it 
 shall be Milverton's. I see I must content myself with 
 Walter, and, accordingly, I go to curry favour with my 
 future biographer. 
 
 Milverton. No : stop a moment, Ellesmere ; I really 
 want to show you in earnest what a good biographer 
 Walter is. Contemplate again the beauty of the climax. 
 As he winds up with the important event in his own life, 
 and knows something about it, he really can describe it : 
 whereas, when the ordinary biographer attempts todescribe 
 the important event in his hero's life, he generally makes 
 but a sorry business of it ; and perhaps, it had better never 
 be told at all. A poet of our own times has been heard to 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Scries.] M
 
 i;S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 say, " What a blessing it is, that, notwithstanding all the 
 ferreting that has gone on, we know, comparatively- 
 speaking, so little of Shakespeare's life." I am always 
 afraid of their finding out something more. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. It is all very well for the unfortunate 
 victims of biography to complain. Eels and lobsters 
 would have a great deal to say too about the treatment 
 they receive from mankind. But you must admit that the 
 life of a man is a most amusing thing, even when written 
 by his son — no allusion to Walter, whose work promises 
 to be a splendid instance of biographical power and 
 sagacity. I repeat, the life of a man is very amusing until 
 the latter part of it, when it becomes intensely interesting. 
 Milverton. I really cannot agree with you, seeing how 
 they are mostly written at present, being overlaid with 
 trashy letters and unimportant details. It must be a very 
 choice life, happily composed of thought and action, that 
 
 should make a good subject for biography ; and 
 
 Ellcsmere. And the divine art of skipping, unhappily 
 understood by few people, should be exercised liberally 
 both in the writing and the reading. 
 
 Milverton. I admit that there is generally something — 
 often two or three things — which are worth chronicling in 
 the life of almost every man of mark ; but they are often 
 intellectual facts, or I should rather say intellectual 
 processes. Were these things recorded, our knowledge 
 of psychology would be greatly increased. I have been 
 exceedingly curious all my life to know how men of great 
 intellectual labour perform their work. I believe I have 
 told you this before. I always inquire, when I can, of 
 every man renowned for work, how he gets through his
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 179 
 
 work. I wish I could call for a return of such statistical 
 details. 
 
 Ellesmere. Do not trouble yourself: I can tell you in a 
 very few words how all work is done. Getting up early, 
 eating vigorously, saying " No " to intruders resolutely, 
 doing one thing at a time, thinking over difficulties at odd 
 times, i.e., when stupid people are talking in the House of 
 Commons, or speaking at the Bar, not indulging too much 
 in affections of any kind which waste the time and energies, 
 carefully changing the current of your thoughts before you 
 go to bed, planning the work of the day in the quarter of 
 an hour before you get up, playing with children occasion- 
 ally, and avoiding fools as much as possible : that is the 
 way to do a great deal of work. 
 
 Milverton. This is all very fine talking, my dear 
 fellow ; but will you tell me, in detail, how a working 
 man shall avoid fools as much as possible ? Why that 
 one subject would form the most laborious essay and 
 conversation we have ever attempted. It is the art of 
 life ; and you speak of it as if it were a little item of 
 human conduct, which might be managed with the same 
 ease as taking a bath every day : a thing by the way you 
 might as well have thrown into your catalogue of ways 
 and means for working sedulously. 
 
 But there are other things that men might tell us 
 about themselves, which men hardly ever do tell, which 
 a biographer seldom gets at, and yet which would be 
 most useful to the world. 
 
 To give you an instance — a very remarkable instance. 
 I was talking the other day, on this same subject of bio- 
 graphy, with a well-known man of letters, who said, —
 
 I So FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 " There is only one thing in my life which is worth 
 knowing, and it could be told in a page or two." I wish 
 I could give the story in his own graphic words, but I will 
 do the best I can. 
 
 " When I was a boy," he said, " I was at a large school 
 where there were three hundred and twenty boys. You 
 will hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless painfully true, 
 that in one of the greatest branches of boy education 
 there were three hundred and nineteen who were before 
 me. In fact I was the stupidest boy in the school at 
 original composition, for that was the subject. The 
 head master gave out his theme, placing his cocked-hat 
 on the table, and reading out a bit of Blair. I used to 
 take the heading of the theme back to my room, spend 
 half an hour in looking at it, placing it in different lights, 
 — physically, not mentally, — and at the end found out 
 that I had nothing whatever to say about it. My tutor, 
 regarding me with an expression of unutterable pity, 
 used to exclaim, ' Smithers ' (we will call him Smithers), 
 ' you are a good boy, and give me very little trouble. 
 You are not without wits either, but you are the stupidest 
 little dog at original composition that ever came under 
 the administration of this ferule.' 
 
 " Time went on. I became a man ; and I suppose I 
 may say without any great prcsumptuousness, that I have 
 rather distanced my three hundred and nineteen young 
 friends and rivals in what is called original composition. 
 At least if I have not, I am the most successful impostor 
 on record ; and I wish to heaven the imposture could be 
 found out as speedily as possible, for I am troubled now, 
 not only about my own original composition, but about
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 1S1 
 
 that of nearly all other men. Lawyers, poets, divines, 
 statesmen, historians, publishers, send me their sermons, 
 their acts of parliament, their memoranda, their histories, 
 and their poems, and beg for criticisms, retrenchments, 
 additions, or general remarks. When it is warm weather 
 and people feel suggestive, I receive about three letters a 
 week, pointing out to me what works I should write, and 
 desiring me to sit down and write them instantly-. I can- 
 not therefore be blind to the fact that I have some power 
 in composition, or have very successfully deluded the 
 world into a belief that I have." 
 
 Ellesmere. I can guess who it is. But how did the 
 man account for his early stupidity : that is what we want 
 to know. Was he sickly as a boy, and vigorous as a 
 man ? Was his one of those slow-going intellects we 
 sometimes, though rarely, read of ? 
 
 Milvcrton. You may be sure I did not let him go 
 away without accounting for the phenomenon. The expla- 
 nation is as simple as a straight line. " The truth is," he 
 said, " though not a bit better than other men, and in 
 many respects, a great deal worse, I have about me a 
 deadly kind of sincerity — an almost stupid sincerity. I 
 never tell myself any lies, whatever I may do to the rest 
 of the world. I cannot talk from derived thoughts. I 
 must have seen or felt the things myself that I describe. 
 
 " Accordingly, when the master read out for a theme, 
 ' Envy : the hissing serpent of the soul,' no ideas, or 
 rather pretences of ideas, were kind enough to enter this 
 unfortunate mind. I knew nothing whatever about envy, 
 or whether it was a serpent or a black beetle. I did not 
 even envy the little lads about me who had such a knack
 
 1S2 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 of knocking off a theme about envy. To tell the truth, I 
 did not acquire any knowledge of envy worth speaking of, 
 until I got it rather late in life from the study of one 
 man's character, who is notoriously one of the most 
 envious persons in the world. For some time I supposed 
 that man to be a very great critic, and a very wise man. 
 At last I found out that envy was the motive power of his 
 soul. After that study I could have dashed off themes 
 about envy to any extent ; but, when I was a boy, 
 you might have beaten me black and blue before you 
 could have got out of me any ideas whatever on the 
 subject. 
 
 " Now, let us take another subject for a theme. The 
 master read out : — 'A great man is never greater than in 
 adversity.' I took the heading home, put it on my desk, 
 and stared at it hopelessly. I did not know what a great 
 man is like. I did not know what adversity is (we had 
 no such thing as adversity at Mudford, where I was 
 born) ; and, having a very sceptical nature, I should have 
 doubted extremely whether the great man is greater in 
 adversity. 
 
 "Now, I have some notion about great men. I have 
 lived much in the world, and have seen a few great men. 
 If I were one of your essay-writing people, I dare say I 
 could write an essay on greatness. With adversity, too, 
 I am now sufficiently well acquainted ; and, after much 
 hesitation, I have made up my mind when a great man is 
 greater in adversity, and I find that it depends upon his 
 temperament ; and I think I could show you the kind 
 of great man that will be greater in adversity, and the 
 kind of great man that will be greater in prosperity. Oh
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 183 
 
 dear, dear ! How I wish I was back at school again ! 
 What a theme I could rattle off upon this subject, and 
 how I would delight the heart of my old tutor. 
 
 " In the composition of verses, my inaptitude was still 
 more abject and deplorable. 
 
 " ' Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, 
 Dulce loquentem.' 
 
 That was the subject for the week's verses. But I knew 
 nothing about Lalage, and cared nothing about Lalage. 
 Now, alas ! I could tell you a great deal about Lalage : 
 perhaps a little too much. I am ready to make verses 
 upon Lalage to an unlimited extent. I have half a mind 
 to go back to school immediately, in order to have an 
 opportunity of making the verses. 
 
 " Now suppose my tutor, instead of being a kind- 
 hearted, tolerant old gentleman, had been a vexatious, 
 small-minded pedant, he would have had me scourged 
 and pounded and held up to ridicule until really all 
 possibility of ever writing about Lalage, or the great man 
 in adversity, had been driven out of me. But, on the 
 contrary (bless him for it !), he had faith in me, not- 
 withstanding his grievous and painful doubts about my 
 ' original composition,' and sheltered me, and took my 
 part, and polished up any rude stuff I could beg, borrow, 
 or steal, about Lalage, or the great man in adversity. 
 What a lesson this should be to masters, tutors, and 
 parents, to be very careful lest they misunderstand a boy 
 and punish him needlessly ! 
 
 " I cannot hide from myself that the very cause of my 
 failure at school was the cause of my success afterwards.
 
 1S4 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Even when I write common-place things now, the world, 
 which after all knows a great deal more about us than 
 we think, sees that these common-places, are not common- 
 places to me ; that I have thought them out painfully, and 
 that they are serious things to me ; and accordingly it is 
 interested by them. The same stupid sincerity is the sole 
 secret of my success. Mark you, Milverton, the stupidity 
 has not in the least degree diminished. If I wrote on the 
 same subjects that you do, I could say nothing about 
 them till I had seen the things themselves. Out of my 
 own fancy, and relying upon other people's statements, I 
 could not say anything whatever about the sewers of 
 London, the cellars of Liverpool, the wynds of Edinburgh, 
 or the cottages in Dorsetshire. I must work at them for 
 myself. After seeing anything worth writing about, I am 
 troubled with an overflow rather than a deficiency of ideas, 
 and have to put a severe restraint upon myself not to say 
 more than a quarter of what I think. 
 
 "There, sir,"' he concluded, "you have the confession 
 of the stupidest boy among three hundred and twenty : 
 and that is the only thing in my life worth recording." 
 
 Ditnsford. This is a most valuable story, and I begin 
 to fear lest I myself, when tutor of my college, should 
 have said or done something harsh to some gentle youth, 
 which he did not deserve. 
 
 Ellesmere. I know a gentle youth whom you treated 
 like a dog, because he could not understand something 
 in optics, which probably now will turn out to be all 
 wrong, but which the docile Jones, and the crammine 
 Brown, and the inveterately stupid Robinson understood 
 at once, and saw no difficulty in. You asked them to a
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 1S5 
 
 wine-party, I recollect, and you did not ask me. I felt 
 the neglect deeply. 
 
 Dunsford. Sir, I recollect to this day the immense 
 number of impertinent excuses for utter idleness with 
 which you used to vex me — pretending not to understand 
 things that were as clear as daylight, and trying to 
 involve me in all manner of contradictions when I was 
 explaining anything to you. I partly guessed your tricks 
 then. I know them now but too well. I was speaking of 
 some honest, really perplexed individual, and not of such 
 
 Upon this Ellesmere got up, came with a very 
 penitent attitude to me, and said, " Please, sir, may 
 I have dinner to-day out of hall ? Some friends 
 have just come up to see me ; and please, sir, I 
 perfectly understand that problem in optics which 
 you were so good as to explain to us ; and I am 
 sure I cannot think how I should ever have been 
 so stupid as not to understand at once so lucid an 
 explanation as that which you gave us ; and may 
 I have the order for dinner, sir? It is only for 
 eight and a small-college man or two, and we don't 
 count them as anything." 
 
 I gave him leave to have the dinner, for I have 
 always been easily imposed upon, and we marched off 
 to have our own dinner at the table-d'hote.
 
 1S6 FRIEiYDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 We were standing on the bridge at Wurzburg, and 
 admiring the picturesque effect of the great statues 
 which adorn the piers of that bridge. On the 
 previous evening we had entered the town, coming 
 over that bridge by moonlight ; and I do not know 
 that I ever saw anything ornamental in architecture 
 that pleased me so much ; but then I am an 
 untravelled man, and am easily pleased. I expressed 
 my admiration to the rest, and my wonder that no 
 adornment of this kind had ever been tried, to my 
 knowledge, in England. Milverton thus answered me. 
 
 You see, we are timid people ; and we fear anything 
 unusual. We may be dull, but we are resolved to be 
 gentlemanlike. Hence our fear of bright colours, and 
 our horror of anything that is singular in the way of 
 decoration, however appropriate it may be. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I clo not quite agree with this. I 
 think some of the errors of the English, in point of 
 taste arise from accidental circumstances. Our people 
 are accustomed to ugliness. How does this arise ? I say, 
 from contractors having done the work of architects ;
 
 PROVERBS. 187 
 
 so that our buildings over large areas arc turned out like 
 manufactured goods, in set patterns. Of course this is 
 the most expeditious and the cheapest mode of going to 
 work ; but it is a great discouragement to the first-rate 
 artisan ; and it throws the great architect into obscurity. 
 
 Ellesmere, When I hear you all talking in this way, 
 especially Dunsford, who, after his patriotic fashion, is 
 always anxious to adopt in England whatever he may 
 see to be good in other countries, I am reminded of a 
 certain Eastern proverb, which, from its graphic satire, 
 always delighted me. " The horses of the pasha came 
 down to the water to be shod ; the beetle stretched out 
 his leg too." Dunsford sees the work of great men in 
 great times, and thinks that he and his parish clerk, 
 taking the advice of the other inhabitants of Mudfield- 
 cum-Slushmore, will be able to turn out as good a thing, 
 or a better. But is it not a good proverb ? Cannot you 
 see the beetle stretching out his leg too ? 
 
 Milverton. You delight in proverbs, Ellesmere. You 
 are a modern Sancho Panza. 
 
 Ellesmere. Yes : they are the cream of a nation's 
 thought. But it has always been a great subject of 
 curiosity with me how they got vogue, and, indeed, how 
 they were ever invented. Nobody invents proverbs now ; 
 at least I never heard but of one person who did, 
 and his proverbs did not get any vogue. Now which do 
 you think is the best proverb in the world ? It is, to my 
 mind, a very common one. Guess. 
 
 Milverton. It is an absurd question. I dare say there 
 are ten thousand very good proverbs in the world, and 
 we should have to pick out that one which best suits the
 
 iSS FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Ellesmerian nature. Besides, when one reads a collec- 
 tion of proverbs, like Dean Trench's, for instance, one 
 becomes utterly bewildered as to any choice among them. 
 But tell us your favourite. 
 
 Ellesjiicrc. It is an English one, known and appreciated, 
 I have no doubt, by millions of people, " Nobody knows 
 where the shoe pinches but the wearer." That is a con- 
 summate proverb : instantly intelligible ; drawn from the 
 most familiar sources. A child can appreciate the truth 
 of it, and yet it is so subtle and profound, that the oldest 
 man will not have exhausted its meanings. There is 
 another proverb that greatly delights me, but for a different 
 reason : — " To be poor and seem poor is the very devil." 
 Now it is a funny thing that that should be a favourite 
 proverb in a Christian country. It tells a good deal 
 about the inhabitants of that country, I think. 
 
 A curious idea has just come into my mind about 
 proverbs, and one that you might work out, Milverton, 
 with very considerable results. It is to observe what 
 English proverbs the Americans have adopted. I would 
 make a large bet that my shoe proverb is among them. 
 Then it would be curious to see what proverbs they have 
 invented for themselves. Altogether, I can foresee, that 
 a shrewd man, if he could get at the facts about proverbs 
 in the two countries, would cunningly weave out a dis- 
 quisition on the differences of character in the two 
 nations that would be well worth having. 
 
 I declare I am giving you quite a lecture about pro- 
 verbs. Now I will put to you a difficulty which I have 
 had, not about a proverb, but a proverbial expression. 
 I have gradually arrived at the origin of many proverbial
 
 PROVERBS. 1 3g 
 
 expressions. There was one which used to puzzle me 
 very much, often used by my father, and men of that 
 standing. They used to say:—" Ignorant as dirt." It 
 was always " Ignorant as dirt." Now I could not see 
 why dirt should be ignorant. Dirt, as Lord Palmerston 
 has admirably said, is "merely a thing in the wrong 
 place." If the proverb had been against the creators or 
 the maintainors of dirt, it would have been another thing. 
 At last, however, the difficulty was explained, for one fine 
 day I came upon the expression, "Ignorant as dirt," in 
 that vast repertory of useful knowledge, the works of 
 Mr. William Shakespeare. That accounts for its being 
 used by men who, like my father, were steady listeners, 
 night after night, to the plays of Shakespeare. As to the 
 expression itself, as Shakespeare uses it, I question no 
 further. I have complete confidence in him. 
 
 Then as to another expression : — " Drunk as a lord ; " 
 that is historical ; that recalls the last century ; that is 
 true no more ; but the expression remains. Now I come 
 to my main difficulty, which will puzzle you all—" As mad 
 as a hatter." Why a hatter ? 
 
 Milvertoti. I can explain that at once. The per- 
 petual working at anything so ugly must have a tendency 
 to produce insanity. Think, too, of always being sur- 
 rounded by multitudes of modern hats. If that is not 
 enough to drive a man mad, what is ? 
 
 Ellesmere. Ah, you joke : but I should really like to 
 know the origin of that expression. By the way, Mil- 
 verton, you spoke of Sancho Panza, and his proverbs : 
 is it merely a peculiarity of Sancho's, or are the Spanish 
 people generally given to the quotation of proverbs ?
 
 igo FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Milverton. I can hardly answer that question ; but 
 the language is rich in proverbs, — far richer, I suspect, 
 than that of any other nation. In the gravest works, 
 even of theological writers, you find frequent reference to 
 homely proverbs. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, I will venture to say you will never 
 bring any to equal my English one. I will not ask you 
 to make the attempt at once ; but exercise your cruel 
 memory — I say cruel, because any man with a very good 
 memory is likely to be cruel in quotation — and bring us 
 ten Spanish proverbs to-morrow, and see if my English 
 one does not beat them all put together. 
 
 Milverton. I will do so ; but what should you say, my 
 friend, if some fine day your proverb was to be altogether 
 upset and rendered inapplicable ? 
 
 Ellesmere. What can you mean ? 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Yes : what can he mean ? 
 
 Milverton. This age is full of great inventions. I 
 honour them all, and admire the inventors. But one of 
 the greatest inventions for the comfort of mankind is yet 
 to be invented, and that is a good and cheap shoe. 
 Some of you may laugh at this ; but Dunsford, who 
 knows the ways of the poor well, will not laugh. I 
 declare that if I were endeavouring to dissuade a poor 
 couple from marrying, the first question I should ask them 
 would be, " Have you thought about the expense for the 
 shoes of the children ? " 
 
 I am confident that we have not yet made trial of the 
 
 many new materials which have come into our hands. 
 
 Some time or other, I will give my whole mind to the 
 
 .ing of a shoe, and if I were to succeed, my name
 
 PROVERBS. 191 
 
 would go down to posterity with Watt, Arkwright, 
 Stephenson, and the man who first applied chloroform in 
 cases of operation — Simpson, I think, was his name. 
 
 Ellesmere. And so you think to upset my pet proverb 
 in that way, do you ? You may make your good shoe, but 
 fashion will always contrive to make it pinch somewhere. 
 I have not the slightest fear for my proverb. It will last 
 as long as Shakespeare. But don't you forget your ten 
 Spanish proverbs, and bring them to us to-morrow well 
 rendered in English. 
 
 Milverton. I will do so if I can. But in return I have 
 a request to make of you. I could not help thinking, 
 when you were delivering your short discourse on proverbs 
 with so much force and perspicuity, why it should always 
 have fallen upon me to write essays for the amusement of 
 this good company. It is really your turn now, Ellesmere. 
 It might be something of a worldly character, in which 
 you could insert all those short, sharp sayings which you 
 have evidently set such store by. It might be an elongated 
 maxim of Rochefoucault's. 
 
 Ellesmere. I declare I have half a mind to do so, if 
 only to put you all to shame for the disdain with which I 
 see you treat worldly maxims. Let me see. What shall 
 it be upon— the art of developing one's self from a small 
 Rector into a considerable Bishop, eh, Dunsford ? Or the 
 truth which always abides (sometimes rather hidden), in 
 good diplomacy, Mr. Midhurst? Or the art of making a 
 sanitary treatise read and sell like a brilliant novel, eh, 
 Milverton ? Or the most delicate modes by which a rich 
 and obedient husband may be ensnared, Miss Vernon and 
 Miss Blanche? Such essays might be useful to this 
 company.
 
 192 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Milverton. Yes : sum up all these in one grand essay ; 
 and call it, the arts of advancement in life. 
 
 Mildred. It will be a nauseous essay. 
 
 Ellesmerc. Perhaps. But you will all listen to it with 
 much greater attention that if I were to give you one upon 
 the beauty of Virtue, or the nobility of Benevolence, or 
 any other stock subject for preachment. Being so sure 
 beforehand of the suffrage of Miss Vernon, I cannot resist 
 making a humble attempt at such an essay. But I must 
 have my time to do it in. I cannot, like these practised 
 writers, Milverton and Dunsford, spin off, at a moment's 
 notice, an indefinite yarn upon any given subject, or none 
 at all. Besides, there will be a great deal compressed 
 into a short space, in what I shall have to say ; and even 
 these writers will tell you, that when they have anything 
 to say, and must say it briefly, they are obliged to take a 
 long time about their work. 
 
 Mildred. I can see that the modesty of the perform- 
 ance will be nearly equal to its other merits. 
 
 Ellesmere. Thanks, thanks, for this encouragement. 
 
 Milverton. I shall not bring my ten Spanish proverbs 
 till the essay is ready. 
 
 Ellesmere. Be it so. That is a bargain. 
 
 Here the conversation ended ; and we separated 
 into parties to roam about the old town, and to walk 
 in the palace gardens.
 
 ( 193 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 We had to wait some time, both for Ellesmere's 
 essay, and for Milverton's Spanish proverbs. I was 
 somewhat surprised at Milverton's keeping us waiting, 
 until he told me one day that he could remember 
 Spanish proverbs by the dozen, and that he- had 
 written a great many down ; but, to tell the truth, he 
 could not find one equal to the common English 
 proverb which Ellesmere had quoted, and made so 
 much of. He was therefore glad of the delay, in 
 the hope that the wished-for proverb would suddenly 
 come into his mind. 
 
 We had finished our stay at Wilrzburg, and were at 
 Salzburg, when Ellesmere said he was ready, and that 
 there was no longer any excuse for Milverton. It was 
 very warm weather, and for our place of meeting we 
 chose a sequestered spot whence we could see the 
 snowy peaks of the Tyrolese Alps. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, Milverton, are you ready for battle, 
 with your ten Spaniards against my single Englishman ? 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] N
 
 194 FKIEiVDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Milverton. You see, you are six English persons and 
 a bull-dog who are to be the judges. Your proverb would 
 not be worth much in Andalucia, where they wear sandals. 
 However, I will begin at once. Before beginning, though, 
 I must observe that most of my proverbs have a pleasant 
 jingle about them, which will be lost in translation, but 
 which is a valuable adjunct to a proverb, as making it 
 more easily rememberable. 
 
 Collar y odrar, por la tier r a y por la mar. " To work 
 and be silent, by land and by sea." 
 
 Quien su/rio, vencio. " He who suffered, conquered." 
 You must admit that is a fine proverb. 
 
 Pensando d donde vas, tc olvidas de donde vienes. 
 " Thinking where you are going, you forget from whence 
 you come." 
 
 Now here is a hit at the lawyers : — Papel y tinta, y 
 fioca justicia. " Plenty of paper and ink, and little 
 justice." 
 
 El mentir no tiene alcavala. " Lying is not taxed." 
 
 Mira que ales, que desates. " Look that what you may 
 tie, you can untie." 
 
 Quien se viste de ruin paiio, dos vezes se viste al aiio. 
 " He who clothes himself in bad cloth, has new clothes 
 twice a year." — A just estimation of cheap bargains, I think. 
 
 Here is a sly hit against councils. Siete hermanos en 
 un consejo, d las vezes juzgan tuerto, d las vezes derecho. 
 " Seven brothers in a council, sometimes they judge awry, 
 sometimes aright." 
 
 Here is a proverb, which conveys a touching appeal for 
 tolerance. " Mirais lo que bebo.y no la sed que tengo.'" 
 "You see what I drink, but not the thirst I suffer." If
 
 PROVERBS. 195 
 
 we did but make some little allowance for our neighbour's 
 thirst, we should judge more wisely sometimes. We are 
 seldom thirsty ourselves just at the time when we are 
 commenting upon thirsty people. 
 
 Here is rather a shrewd one, upon the advantage of 
 fools. Si el necio no fuese al mercado, no se venderia lo 
 malo. " If the fool did not go to market the damaged 
 goods would never be sold." 
 
 Here is rather a deep one, which it is difficult to render 
 fully. Sigue razon, aunque a twos agrade,y d oiros non. 
 " Right reason holds on its way, although it may please 
 some, and others not." 
 
 Tatito es lo de mas, como lo de mows. " So much as 
 there is of the more, so much there is of the less." That 
 is a very wide proverb. One does not see at first how 
 much may be made of it. 
 
 Ellesmere. Stop, stop ! You are getting beyond 
 the ten. 
 
 Milverton. Before I conclude, let me give you another, 
 which it is quite fair to give, since it is French, and not 
 Spanish. It occurred to me while I was hunting out the 
 others in my memory. It is very ancient. 
 
 " Tout contraire en son contraire, 
 Prent vertu pour soi refaire." 
 
 Ellesmere. I see, Milverton, from your looks that you 
 know you have lost. Some of your proverbs are deep 
 and wide, but they are not familiar enough. Far the best 
 one, as it seems to me, — and it is leagues behind ray 
 English one, — is, " See that you can untie what you tie." 
 As a pendant to mine it is not bad.
 
 196 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 There is great depth and weight, though, in that 
 French proverb. Indeed it hardly seems like a proverb. 
 Before one could master it thoroughly, seven German 
 metaphysicians would have to evoke the " Idea" of "the 
 Contrary " out of the depths of their own moral con- 
 sciousness, and afterwards to express their ideas in nine 
 three-volumed works. 
 
 Dunsford. What do you mean, Ellesmere ? 
 
 Ellesmere. My meaning will be made more clear by a 
 quotation from Lewes's Life of Geothe. 
 
 " A Frenchman, an Englishman, and a German were 
 commissioned, it is said, to give the world the benefit of 
 their views on that interesting animal, the Camel. Away 
 goes the Frenchman to the fardin dcs Plantes, spends an 
 hour there in rapid investigation, returns, and writes a 
 feuillelon, in which there is no phrase which the Academy 
 can blame, but also no phrase which adds to the general 
 knowledge. He is perfectly satisfied, however, and says, 
 Le voila, le chamemi ! The Englishman packs up his 
 tea-caddy and a magazine of comforts ; pitches his tent 
 in the East ; remains there studying the Camel in its 
 habits • and returns with a thick volume of facts, arranged 
 without order, expounded without philosophy, but serving 
 as valuable materials for all who come after him. The 
 German, despising the frivolity of the Frenchman, and 
 the unphilosophical matter-of-factness of the Englishman, 
 retires to his study, there to construct the Idea of a Camel 
 from out of the depths of his Moral Consciousness. And 
 he is still at it."* 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 201.
 
 PROVERBS. 197 
 
 How I have laughed over this bit ! I delight in the 
 Frenchman more even than in the German — Le voild, le 
 diameau ! 
 
 But to go back to our proverbs — you must admit, 
 Milverton, that I have beaten you. 
 
 Milvcrton. Stay, stay, don't be so sure of the vic- 
 tory. Such an excellent Spanish proverb has occurred 
 to me. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well ! If I ever heard anything like this. 
 Imagine the Derby race just over, the second horse 
 beaten by three lengths or some enormous distance of 
 that kind, and the second jockey insisting upon having 
 the race run over again because his foot had got out of 
 the stirrup, or because he had dropped his whip, or 
 because a fly had settled on his nose. The idea is pre- 
 posterous : nevertheless, we will hear the proverb. 
 
 Milvcrton. I only know an English version of it. I 
 recollect where I met with the proverb. In that charming 
 book, Northcotes Conversations with Hazlitt. 
 
 Ellesmere. Another fatal flaw. That clever fellow 
 Hazlitt might have coined the proverb. Cut let us 
 have it. 
 
 Milverton. " He who returns the first blow, is the man 
 who begins the quarrel." Is it not admirable ? That is 
 just the point at which the stricken person has the game 
 in his power ; and, if he have magnanimity and dignityj 
 can almost always, without shame, prevent the quarrel. 
 It is astonishing to find such a proverb amongst a people 
 reported to be vengeful. 
 
 Ellesmere. It is very good, but it comes too late : we 
 have no evidence that it is Spanish ; and it is not sufh-
 
 198 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 ciently commonplace to come up to my beau ideal of a 
 proverb. The victory * is doubly mine. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. I congratulate Ellesmere on his victory, 
 and look on it as a good omen for the forthcoming essay, 
 which I am very impatient to hear. 
 
 * I could have diminished the credit of Ellesmere's victory 
 very much, if I had known then, as I do now, that both the 
 Italians and the Germans have a proverb similar to his English 
 one — "Nessun sente da che parte preme la Scarpa, se non chi 
 se la calza." "Es weiss niemand besser wo der Schuh dritckt, 
 als der inn tragt." — See Polyglot of Foreign Proverbs, by Henry 
 G. Bohx. London, 1875.
 
 ( 199 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. . 
 
 Ellesmere. Now, before I begin, I must tell you that 
 you will waste your time, if you give up your minds to 
 criticising my style. Should you note anything inaccurate, 
 or ungrammatical, you may conclude that it is put in on 
 purpose. I am determined not to be a classic. Think 
 what a dreadful thing it must be to be a classic. Imagine 
 what the delicate, refined, weak-eyed Virgil must feel at 
 his well-turned lines being chosen as an early exercise in 
 Latin for every blockhead. Imagine how Horace smiles 
 sadly, and lifts up his eyebrow somewhat cynically, at his 
 odes and satires, many of which can only be understood 
 by an experienced man of the world, being submitted as 
 solid taskwork to every juvenile dunce. Pity poor, genial, 
 elegant Ovid, when his lissome lines are droned over with 
 innumerable false quantities by some perplexed dolt of a 
 beginner ; and lastly, think of grand old Homer, as he 
 went musing or raging by " the sad sea-waves," having a 
 vision of his sublime wrath, or his unrivalled simplicity of 
 thought and diction, being hashed and hammered and 
 tortured into nonsense by innumerable tyros. How these 
 great men must feel as if they were dogs-eared all over ! 
 Besides, how encrusted their names are with the curses 
 of unstudious boys. Now I do not wish in the future 
 that any lad should say to another, " I can't get up my
 
 200 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 confounded Ellesmere," while the other replies, " The 
 beast ! I've done him ; but I missed such a jolly game 
 of cricket last evening." No, ladies and gentlemen, I 
 may be abused and misrepresented by you, as I dare say 
 I shall be ; but I do not mean to be a terror and a provo- 
 cation to bad words for any distant generation. My style 
 consequently will be what is called "slip-slop," by no 
 means classical, but rather such as the generous youth of 
 future periods of the earth will be told to avoid diligently 
 — upon which they will declare that I am " a brick." 
 
 Milverlon. How ingeniously he has endeavoured to 
 prevent all criticism upon his style ; but it may be bad 
 li slip-slop," and not only unclassical but dull. Criticism 
 is not to be baulked or rendered nugatory by any of these 
 artful mock-modest ways. However, let us begin. Elles- 
 mere may, after all, prove to be a classic without knowing 
 it, and even while he is intending the contrary. 
 
 Ellesmere then read the following essay : — 
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 
 
 IN the first place, it is desirable to be born north 
 of the Tweed (I like to begin at the beginning 
 of things) ; and if that cannot be managed, you must 
 at least contrive to be born in a moderately-sized 
 town — somewhere. You thus get the advantage of 
 being favoured by a small community, without losing 
 any individual force. If I had been born at Aff-
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 201 
 
 puddle — Milverton in Tolpuddle — and Dunsford in 
 Tollerporcorum (there are such places, at least I saw 
 them once arranged together in a petition to the 
 House of Commons) — the men of Affpuddle, Tol- 
 puddle, and Tollerporcorum would have been proud 
 of us, would have been true to us, and would have 
 helped to push our fortunes. I see, with my mind's 
 eye, a statue of Dunsford raised in Tollerporcorum. 
 You smile, I observe ; but it is the smile of ignorance, 
 for let me tell you, it is of the first importance not to 
 be born vaguely, as in London, or in some remote 
 country-house. If you cannot, however, be born 
 properly, contrive at least to be connected with some 
 small sect or community, who may consider your 
 renown as part of their renown, and be always ready 
 to favour and defend you. 
 
 Work in a groove, a well-worn groove (see Leonard 
 Milverton, passim). You profit by the labour of 
 untold generations who have helped to wear a way 
 for you. The man who attempts anything new may 
 be a great man, may be an inventive genius, but he 
 has no right to expect any remarkable share of 
 advancement. Advancement loves the easy, level, 
 well-beaten paths of life. 
 
 Originality of character may be harmful, eccen- 
 tricity of conduct may be injurious, peculiarity in
 
 202 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL 
 
 dress or demeanour is most likely to be prejudicial 
 to the man who would rise in the world ; but all these 
 are nothing compared with the danger arising from 
 any eccentricity of position. Let your position be 
 commonplace, whatever you are yourself. If you are 
 a genius, and contrive to conceal the fact, you really 
 deserve to get on in the world, and you will do so, 
 if only you keep upon the level road. Remember 
 always that the world is a place where second-rate 
 people mostly succeed : not fools, nor first-rate people. 
 
 Connect yourself in some way with the great 
 Eating interest. Provide sustenance, or distribute it, 
 or defend it : and do this obviously. Any employ- 
 ment which is not connected closely with the manifest 
 and continuous wants of mankind, will depend upon 
 their caprices, and be subject to their shallow criti- 
 cisms. This at once disposes of Art, Science, and 
 Literature. It may admit the Clothing interest, in so 
 far as this is not connected with art, refinement, or 
 good taste. 
 
 Be known, if you can, for pre-eminence in one 
 thing, even if it be the making of a button. It jars 
 against the self-complacency of men, and astonishes 
 them — now you do not want to astonish them — to 
 find that a man can do two things very well. Sir
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 203 
 
 Walter Scott, who knew mankind well, has spoken 
 somewhere decisively upon this point, in reference to 
 the great Lord Peterborough, who was a universal 
 genius. Lord Bacon's life affords another instance ; 
 Lord Carteret's, another; and we all. know many men 
 who have remained obscure, chiefly because they 
 could do too many things too well. 
 
 Do not indulge in loves or hatreds. They discom- 
 pose the judgment, occupy time, and hinder self- 
 advancement : but if you ' must indulge in these 
 unprofitable passions — choose the hatreds. 
 
 In the commencement of affairs think always of 
 the ending ; and picture to yourself innumerable diffi- 
 culties. Do not suppose that anything will turn out 
 rightly. Never believe in estimates ; and, generally, 
 at the outset of a transaction, discourage, and seek to 
 quell, all exuberant hopefulness in yourself. In the 
 course of the transaction you will have need of all 
 the hopefulness you can muster. It is best to begin 
 with a little aversion, not only in marriage, but in 
 all other affairs that are to endure for a long time. 
 Mrs. Malaprop was a wise woman, but her wisdom 
 may be more extensively applied than she applied it. 
 
 Take almost anything that is offered to you in the 
 way of advancement. A person who is nicely and 
 scrupulously observant of his own claims and merits
 
 204 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 misses golden opportunities — and the years soon 
 go by. I will refer you to Guicciardini on this 
 point : — 
 
 " Let him who would be employed beware of letting the 
 possession of Business be drawn away from him : for one 
 thing doth give occasion to another, and this not only, 
 because from one thing thou dost naturally step on to 
 another, but because of the reputation which being seen 
 occupied in Affairs shall bring thee. Wherefore the 
 proverb is here also proper ; one thing is father to 
 another." * 
 
 The shortness of life is a fruitful subject to 
 moralists and sermon-writers. By the way, they have 
 made life seem longer by making it duller. But this 
 shortness of life is seldom fully appreciated by busy 
 men of the world. Almost everybody's plans are 
 laid down on too large a scale. On this point, 
 Horace is good reading ; and a living statesman has 
 not ill summed up life, when he wrote, " Youth is a 
 blunder : manhood a struggle : old age a regret." 
 He might, however, have appointed the three evils 
 to each stage of life, and not have been very far from 
 the truth. 
 
 77ie Maxims of Francis Guicciardini, translated by Emma 
 Martin, No. 7$, p. S3.
 
 OX THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 205 
 
 Avoid all actions with others to which you cannot 
 give continuous attention. If you illuminate your 
 work, Dunsford, that last maxim of mine should be 
 written in letters of gold. You all think me a hard- 
 hearted man, and the expression on your countenances 
 has hitherto been rather that of disgust than appro- 
 bation. But if you knew how much misery I have 
 seen in the course of my profession — and sympathized 
 with — arising out of the neglect of the foregoing 
 maxim, you would at least give me credit for having 
 some pitifulness in me. However, whether you do or 
 not, I shall continue in the same strain. 
 
 Bring misfortune soon to a conclusion. There is a 
 time when a wise man sees that a thing unfortunately 
 begun, or ill-guided, will not improve. It drags on in 
 the dirt, and becomes a heavier burden every day. 
 The man who is careful of his fortunes will have the 
 courageous wisdom to count his loss, and to put up 
 with it. In connection with such a state of affairs 
 I would advise you not to dwell much upon your 
 failures. Pass on. Do not look back too much. 
 Life will not bear this retrospection ; and indulgence 
 in vain regret is not a fitting luxury for those who 
 have their fortunes to make. As some wise French 
 writer has said : — " Oublier, e'est le grand secret des 
 natures fortes et ereatriees."
 
 2 o6 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Remember always that what is real and substantive 
 ultimately has its way in this world. 
 
 You make good bricks, for instance ; it is in vain 
 that your enemies prove that you are a heretic in 
 morals, politics, and religion ; insinuate that you beat 
 your wife ; and dwell loudly on the fact that you 
 failed in making picture-frames. In so far as you 
 are a good brick-maker, you have all the power 
 that depends on good brick-making ; and the world 
 will mainly look to your positive qualities as a 
 brick-maker. 
 
 This is a great consolation. You commit an error ; 
 you make a failure : you fall into discredit : and you 
 think that you will never more have force or reputa- 
 tion in the world. This is a mistake. Only pluck 
 up heart, and do something that is good or at least 
 serviceable ; and you will be astonished to find how 
 soon you are re-instated, and how much of your 
 pristine vigour you have recovered. But if you 
 cannot obey the French maxim above quoted, that 
 recommends forgetfulness, you will go on teasing 
 yourself about the past, until you lose all power 
 of doing something substantially useful and forcible, 
 which may enable you to recover lost ground. The 
 French writer proceeds to say, that you must forget 
 " after the manner of Nature, which takes no cogniz-
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 207 
 
 ance of the past, but recommences at every hour the 
 mysteries of her indefatigable productiveness." * 
 
 In acting with other men, do not set them up in 
 your mind as wonderful heroes, abiding in con- 
 sistency, and actuated by motives that are almost 
 impossible to overcome. It is true that no calcula- 
 tion has yet been made of men's vanity which has 
 been found too large ; but of all other motives you 
 are likely to overrate the force. 
 
 When you have, therefore, to act with other men, 
 calculate on their vanity being inordinate, on their 
 weariness and forgetfulness being very great, and on 
 their placability being excessive. 
 
 Attempt little : remembering the immense knowledge 
 that it requires to live wisely. Observe that men of three- 
 score and upwards say that they are just beginning to 
 understand the world well enough to commence living 
 in it : and ask yourself whether this is a place, or human 
 beings the people, who can venture to attempt much. 
 
 * These are the French words. I do not know where Elles- 
 mere found them, but I have since teen the passage in a work 
 called Life's Problems, p. 172, London, 1857 : — 
 
 " Les existences foibles vivent dans les douleurs au lieu de les 
 changer en apophthegmes d'experience. Elles s'en saturent et 
 s'usent en retrogradant chaque jour dans les malheurs consommes. 
 Oublier, c'est le grand secret des existences fortes et creatrices, — 
 oublier a la maniere de la Nature, qui ne se connait point de 
 passe, qui recommence a toute heure les mysteres de ses infati- 
 gables enfantements."
 
 20S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Avoid delicacy. A delicate, refined man, who 
 cannot ask for his due, cannot put forward his just 
 claims, cannot say that he wants anything, or cannot 
 say it with sufficient persistence and frequency — 
 cannot make himself visible and prominent at the 
 right time, though he knows the right time — may be 
 a beautiful product of creation, very loveable, very 
 much to be admired : but he must be content with 
 being this beautiful product, and not presume to 
 think that he will ever make any advance upon his 
 original condition in life. This earth is not for the 
 refined. They cannot expect to get anything in the 
 scuffle that is going on. You all remember the well- 
 known story of Lord Thurlow ! how, whenever a 
 bishopric was vacant, he always said to the King, 
 " Please your Majesty, I have a brother," until at 
 last George the Third a (man not without persistency 
 himself) was tired of hearing this cuckoo exclamation 
 from his Chancellor, and gave a bishopric to the 
 brother. Again, in business it often happens that a 
 man is too delicate to ask a question which ought to 
 be asked, which he knows ought to be asked, which 
 he longs to ask ; and his not asking this question is 
 for ever a detriment to him — perhaps, his ruin. 
 
 The question of intimacy with others enters into
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF- ADVANCEMENT. 209 
 
 considerations of self-advancement. Intimate friends 
 nearly always injure you ; yet it is tempting to have 
 a friend, and it would be very useful to have one, if 
 friends were not as careless as they often are in 
 damaging your reputation. The man who studies 
 self-advancement may have, nay should have, many 
 persons with whom he has a certain intimacy, but 
 there should be that distance between them at which 
 respect is most sure to be maintained. We all under- 
 estimate those whom we know best, and keep our 
 choicest civilities, sometimes even our best benefits, 
 for those who are comparatively unknown to us, and 
 who, therefore, have most estimation with us, and 
 most repute. I will admit, for I am not a pedantic 
 layer down of maxims, like some people (Now should 
 I have said this disrespectful thing if I had not been 
 an intimate friend of these " some people " ?) — I will 
 admit that a refined and delicate man may indulge 
 in an intimate friendship. He is sure not to say the 
 right thing, at the right time, for himself. But the 
 man who can speak up for himself can do without 
 intimate friends. [Oh ! oh ! and murmurs of disappro- 
 bation from all the company.] 
 
 I do not care about these murmurs. They will not 
 
 affect the jury, for my jurymen are to be chosen from mea 
 
 of the world, seeking advancement. 
 
 VOL I. [2nd Series.J O
 
 210 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Next to the question of friends comes that of 
 agents. In one respect, I think, they may be trusted 
 largely. That is, as to their fidelity. There is much 
 less mischief done by faithlessness in agents than is 
 generally supposed. But you cannot overrate too 
 much the chances of their neglecting to do what you 
 have told them.* You must follow up, through all 
 its stages, any business that you wish to be sure of 
 succeeding. Constant and tiresome inquiries must 
 be made, as to whether the thing is done that you 
 have ordered to be done. I knew all this before, but 
 I re-learnt it from M. Thiers. He has somewhere or 
 other described his conduct when making prepara- 
 tions for war — How he believed in nothing without 
 sufficient evidence : and how he required vouchers 
 and receipts at every stage of the proceedings, to 
 prove to his own satisfaction that his orders had been 
 faithfully transmitted, and exactly executed. There 
 was no distant point of the web that did not tremble 
 to his touch. He never quitted hold of the great 
 
 * " How entirely all things depend upon the mode of executing 
 them, and how ridiculous mere theories are ! My successor 
 thought, as half the world always thinks, that a man in com- 
 mand has only to order, and obedience will follow. Hence they 
 are baffled, not from want of talent, but from inactivity, vainly 
 thinking that while they spare themselves every one under them 
 will work like horses." (if ir Charles J. Napier.)
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 211 
 
 affairs before him : " at last," he says, " my very dreams 
 were administrative." That is the way in which war 
 should be prepared for; and let me tell you, some- 
 thing of the same spirit should enter into the conduct 
 of all affairs that are worth conducting at all. 
 
 But the difficulty of difficulties, and the thing that 
 requires an imaginative supervision, is the joining of 
 different kinds of work together so that no time or 
 substance be lost. I prefer to illustrate this by very 
 common household matters, though I might have 
 taken the greatest affairs of nations to exemplify my 
 text. You have some work of building, or repairing, 
 on hand. Men of different kinds of handicraft must 
 be employed on it. The mason is doing his work, 
 but is thinking of no other kind of handicraft. The 
 carpenter is doing his, but remains oblivious that 
 there are any other artisans but carpenters in the 
 world. Meanwhile the blacksmith has received 
 imperfect orders, or is not observed in the execu- 
 tion of complete orders. The end is, that the 
 whole work stands still at a critical period for 
 want of some bolts, or bars, or iron girders. Every 
 country gentleman will feel the force of this illustra- 
 tion. Every general ought to appreciate it still more 
 feelingly. But the same kind of mistiming, and the 
 same deficiency of arrangement, are visible right
 
 2 1 2 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 through all human affairs ; and efficiency in a first-rate 
 subordinate is never so well tested as by observing 
 how he contrives that the work, to use a builder's 
 phrase, should " follow on." " Armies whole have 
 sunk " not so much in ' ; Damietta's bog," as they 
 have fallen to perdition through the interstices of 
 ill-contrived arrangement. The bolts and bars are 
 not there. Time is lost. Opportunity, more coy 
 than any maiden, is also lost : and a vast and 
 costly apparatus comes to nought for want of the 
 right thing — often a small thing — at the right time 
 and place. The man who should prevent this is 
 generally not a hopeful person ; but is inclined to 
 believe that everything will go wrong, and that almost 
 everything will be too late. Such a subordinate is 
 sure of success, if there is any attention paid to 
 merit ; and the man who employs him is also sure 
 of success in any business which requires the super- 
 vision of such a subordinate. 
 
 I have too long detained my hearers, my approving 
 hearers, upon the mere modes of action. I now 
 pass to a much more important branch of my 
 subject. Those who wish for self-advancement should 
 remember, that the art in life is not so much to do a 
 thin r ' well, as to get a thing that has been moderately
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF- ADVANCEMENT. 213 
 
 well done largely talked about. Some foolish people, 
 who should have belonged to another planet, give all 
 their minds to doing their work well. This is an 
 entire mistake. This is a grievous loss of power. 
 Such a method of proceeding may be very well in 
 Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn, but is totally out of place in 
 this puffing, advertising, bill-sticking part of creation. 
 To rush into the battle of life without an abundance 
 of kettle-drums and trumpets is a weak and ill- 
 advised adventure, however well-armed and well- 
 accoutred you may be. As I hate vague maxims 
 I will at once lay down the proportions in which 
 force of any kind should be used in this world. 
 Suppose you have a force which may be represented 
 by the number one hundred : seventy-three parts at 
 least of that force should be given to the trumpet ; 
 the remaining twenty-seven parts may not disadvan- 
 tageous^ be spent in doing the thing which is to be 
 trumpeted. Tins is a rule unlike some rules in 
 grammar, which are entangled and controlled by a 
 multitude of vexatious exceptions ; but it applies 
 equally to the conduct of all matters on earth, 
 whether social, moral, artistic, literary, political, or 
 religious. 
 
 I now proceed to speak about the qualities that 
 should be in a man, and that he should sedulously
 
 214 FRIENbS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 cultivate, in order to ensure self-advancement. In 
 reality, however, it is not the individual qualities, but 
 the combination of them, and the proportion they 
 bear one to another, that make the complete man. 
 The reason why in such matters maxims fail in doing 
 much is, that, if adopted at all, they are not adopted 
 harmoniously and bound together in due proportions, 
 so that you have the plums, and the flour, and the 
 water, and the spice, but in the end, a very indifferent 
 plum-pudding. To lay down rules, though, about this 
 combination and proportion is beyond my art. Like 
 other writers of essays, I can only impart my wisdom 
 bit by bit, and nature must always be left to make the 
 exquisite admixture which is needful. 
 
 In the first place, the man who wishes for self- 
 advancement must be industrious. This seems a 
 common-place remark, but is not so. It is imagined, 
 for instance, that any clever man can get up a subject 
 very quickly. This is all a delusion, and we lawyers 
 are the people who have especially deluded mankind 
 in this matter. They see us crammed, as they sup- 
 pose, overnight, or early in the morning before going 
 into court, with the details of a subject, and they 
 suppose that a similar thing can be done in any other 
 department of human life ; but they forget that a law 
 case when it comes for adjudication is often a very
 
 OX 7 VJE A R TS OF SEL F-ADVA NCEMEN T. 215 
 
 limited and narrow affair ; and they also forget that 
 these details, which they see supplied to us at the last 
 moment, fall into the right places in our minds — the 
 places prepared for them by long previous study and 
 experience. My man who is to succeed must not 
 only be industrious, but, to use an expression of a 
 learned friend of mine, he must have "an almost 
 ignominious love of details." Look at the House of 
 Commons for an exemplification of this maxim. 
 Without immense industry no sure and abiding 
 success is obtained. It is in vain that you cram a 
 man with the details for a speech. In the first place, 
 he never has the confidence to use them well and 
 heartily, and in the next you prepare him to hit in 
 a certain direction, say, straight forward, and all the 
 telling blows of the adversary come sideways — a 
 mode of attack for which the unhappy crammed man 
 is in noway prepared. 
 
 Next to industry comes promptness. Lord Bacon 
 has well noticed that the men whom powerful persons 
 love to have about them, are ready men — men of 
 resource. The reason is obvious. A man in power 
 has perhaps thirty or forty decisions to make in a 
 day. This is very fatiguing and perplexing to the 
 mind. Any one, therefore, who can assist him with 
 ready resource and prompt means of execution, even
 
 216 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 in the trifling matters of the day, soon becomes an 
 invaluable subordinate, worthy of all favour. 
 
 Next to promptness, comes a certain limitation of 
 view, which is very needful to the man who would 
 succeed. Human affairs are provided for from day to 
 day. The man who sees too widely is nearly sure to 
 be indecisive, or to appear so. Hence, also, comes 
 an appearance, sometimes of shuffling, and sometimes 
 of over-subtlety, which is very harmful to a man. 
 There is a delusion, too, in this width of purview. 
 You see the extent of horizon, but do not make out 
 the roads. You think you know more than you do ; 
 while your knowledge is rather that of a landscape- 
 painter than of a general. I would advise you to 
 know very clearly and accurately the ground close 
 about you ; remembering, with regard to the distance, 
 that wise French proverb, which declares that nothing 
 is certain to happen but the unforeseen. 
 
 But the best reason for being limited in your views 
 is that other people are limited, and that you do not 
 act in harmony with them if you are very far-sighted. 
 I would not, however, speak against far-sightedness, if 
 a man who possesses it would only know on what 
 occasions to keep it to himself. 
 
 I am now going to say something which may 
 appear inconsistent with what I have previously said.
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF- ADVANCEMENT. 217 
 
 I cannot help that : it is true ; and the right selection 
 and combination of my sayings must be made by a 
 judicious person. One maxim is good now, another 
 maxim good then: and the "now" and the "then" 
 come within the undescribed — perhaps undescribable 
 — province of common sense. I have moralized 
 upon the swiftness with which time passes. I have 
 urged the seizing of every opportunity that can be 
 seized. But, at the same time, it must be remem- 
 bered that the man who studies self-advancement 
 judiciously, must know how to wait. There are occa- 
 sions and positions in life in which every move will 
 be a bad one. It requires great self-command at 
 such junctures to pause, and wait ; especially for an 
 energetic man who is used to action. But he must 
 learn the wisdom of doincr nothing — the only wisdom 
 left him in such cases to act upon, or rather, to be 
 passive upon. I have no doubt that, in support of 
 this view, I might quote largely from Machiavelli and 
 Guicciardini ; but a man of the world will not need 
 the authority of these gentlemen with long names to 
 convince him of the truth and importance of my pro- 
 position. Let him only be able to apply it. 
 
 Of course, my hero must be egotistic ; but his 
 egotism must be of a peculiar kind. It must not be 
 tiresome. It must be useful egotism, that can be
 
 2iS FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 worked into something. I would say to such a man : 
 — Be modest in speech about your merits, but not in 
 demands that may further your fortunes. 
 
 Finally, if I must make a combination of the kind 
 of qualities which my hero should possess, I should 
 describe him thus. He should be industrious, hard, 
 prompt, frank, self-sufficing, and somewhat unrefined. 
 I say "somewhat" unrefined advisedly. For if he 
 have not some refinement, he will have no tact ; and 
 will not from slight indications understand what men 
 think and mean, and feel, but must be content to 
 judge of them by what they say, which gives but a 
 small insight into the ways of mankind. His pur- 
 poses must be few and clear. Numbers of clever 
 men who could do anything, never make up their 
 minds distinctly as to what they want, or what they 
 intend to be. Often they want inconsistent things. 
 How can such men expect to succeed? He should 
 have a certain joyous superficiality of character which 
 prevents ill-success from affecting him too deeply ; for 
 there will be plenty of ill-success even in the most 
 prosperous career. After all, he must not care too 
 deeply about the world, if he is to use it wisely and 
 skilfully. Lastly, he must be brave and bold, for 
 civil affairs need fully as much bravery as those of the 
 sword ; and a bold, brave man may be defeated, but
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 219 
 
 is seldom utterly discomfited, or his affairs put to 
 fatal rout. Industrious and resolute as a Scotchman, 
 cautious and observant as a wild Indian, cool and 
 brave as an English soldier marching up, under orders, 
 to a battery, he will not fail to succeed in any depart- 
 ment of life — provided always he keeps for the most 
 part to one department, and does not attempt to 
 conquer in many directions at once. I only hope that, 
 having profited by this wisdom of mine, he will give 
 me a share of the spoil. 
 
 Milverton. Well, of all the intolerable wretches and 
 blackguards — 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. A conceited prig, too ! 
 
 Dunsford. A wicked, designing villain ! 
 
 Ellesmere. Any more : any more ? Pray go on, gentle- 
 men ; and have you, ladies, nothing to say against the 
 wise man of the world that I have depicted ? 
 
 Mildred. There are some truths, though, in the essay, 
 — for instance, when Sir John said that men's vanity was 
 unconscionable. 
 
 Blanche. I did not understand much about the essay? 
 but I saw that the hero was always to be base, and I am 
 sure my cousin would not approve of any part of it. 
 
 Ellesmere. I have now collected all your suffrages, 
 and I see clearly, what I suspected before, that a man 
 who keeps to his subject is not likely to have his lucubra- 
 tions well received in this company. Did I say that my
 
 220 FR/ENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 hero, as Miss Blanche calls him, was a good man, or a 
 great man, or a noble man ? I merely said he would 
 know how to get on in the world. I have given you a 
 series of opinions, the like to which, if they had been 
 pronounced upon law cases, would have produced not 
 less than seven hundred and fiftv- three guineas, t have 
 given them to you for nothing, and it is a lesson to me 
 for the future not to give anything for nothing. Indeed 
 I shall add that maxim to any future edition of my essay. 
 
 Mr. Midkurst. There was a sentence in it that might 
 have been one of those quotations you threatened us with 
 from Machiavelli. 
 
 Milverton. Whv it was all Machiavelli from beginning 
 to end. Does not that respectable gentleman say, that 
 his model Prince should be part man, part beast ; * at 
 any rate that he should know how to use the beast-nature, 
 a precept which is shadowed forth, he says, in the fable 
 that Achilles and other princes of antiquity were brought 
 up by the centaur Chiron ? Ellesmere's model man would, 
 I am sure, have delighted Machiavelli. 
 
 Ellesmere. A worthy man that, not appreciated by his 
 
 * " Pertanto ad un principe e necessario saper bene usare la 
 bestia e l'uomo. Questa parte e stata insegnata a' principi coper- 
 tamente dagli antichi scrittori, i quali scrivono come Achille, 
 e molti altri di quelli principi antichi furono dati a nutrire a 
 Chirone Centauro, che sotto la sua disciplina li custodisse ; il che 
 non vuole dire altro l'avere per precettore un mezzo bestia e 
 mezzo uomo, se non che bisogna ad un principe sapere u«are 
 1 una e l'altra natura, e 1'una senza l'altra non e durabile." — 
 MACHIAVELLI, vol. v. // Principe. Cap. IS. " In che modo 
 i prin :ipi dcbbotio osservare la Jede."
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 221 
 
 own age, or any succeeding age. Like me, he kept to 
 his subject, and suffered accordingly — but the sentence, 
 Mr. Midhurst. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Give me the paper. (Reads :) " Do not 
 indulge in loves, or hatreds ; but if you must indulge in 
 these unprofitable passions — choose the hatreds." 
 
 Ellcsmere. Well, that is sound doctrine — sound in the 
 main at least ; for perhaps I should have said, that he 
 might indulge in a few judicious hatreds, as I have known 
 instances where a man has decidedly lost ground with the 
 world by being always kind and placable. I have seen 
 such in political life. 
 
 Milverton. You are mistaken, Ellesmere. There are 
 no judicious hatreds, but there are such things as judicious 
 outbursts of indignation. 
 
 Ellcsmere. Ah, now we come to the real Machiavelli. 
 There is the man. 
 
 Blanche. Leonard, do take the taste away from us 
 of his dreadful essay. Repeat to them that bit of the 
 Laodamia which you were quoting to me as we came 
 along. Mr. Ellesmere's perfect man of the world will not, 
 I fancy, in any future region rise to that height. 
 
 Dnnsford. Wait a minute, my dear. I should like to 
 hear the Laodamia too ; but I must make a remark first 
 about the essay. 
 
 Pre-eminent amongst the many atrocious things which 
 Ellesmere has brought forward in this essay of his was 
 the statement that he made about the use of the trumpet, 
 and about a man's giving his principal attention not to 
 doing a thing, but to getting it talked about. 
 Blanche. Shocking !
 
 222 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 Mildred. Horrible ! 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Disgusting ! 
 
 Milverton, Oh, it was only his fun. 
 
 Ellcsmerc. It was not his fun. It was his most earnest 
 earnestness. Suppose a mountebank, on entering a town, 
 were to make known his coming confidentially, in choice 
 English, to the principal inhabitants only — would any- 
 body buy his wares, I ask ? 
 
 Dunsford. I did not know that you were speaking 
 entirely of mountebanks. 
 
 Ellcsmerc. Not entirely ; but take horsemanship, in 
 which something laborious and adroit is accomplished. 
 Would anybody come to see the Circus, if the Circus 
 people entered the town in a quiet, easy, gentlemanly 
 manner, instead of with kettle-drums and trumpets, 
 seated in state, on a car with sixteen piebald horses 
 which stops up the way, and compels everybody to be 
 aware that the unrivalled performers " who very lately 
 had the honour of attending Her Majesty at Windsor " 
 have just arrived, " to stay one night only," in the little 
 town of Sleepy-Scandal. As for you, benevolent, high- 
 minded, puff-despising blockheads and blockheadesses, 
 whom I have the honour of addressing, you porcine 
 creatures before whom pearls are being strewn in vain, 
 you would starve, you would not even have roots to eat, if 
 you had your living to get, and were to set about doing 
 so in your high-minded, dispuffative fashion. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. There is one thing in the way of 
 puffing which I never get used to ; and that is the 
 "claqueurs" in a French theatre, whose applause is regu- 
 lated by the most careful pre-arrangement.
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 223 
 
 Dunsford. Friends of the author, I suppose ? 
 
 Ettesmere. You innocent creature ! No ; they are 
 hired people. They are there every night. I suppose you 
 have been to a French play ? 
 
 Dunsford. Yes : and, now I think of it, I do remember 
 noticing that their applause used to break off abruptly ; 
 but then I imagined it was because the French had a 
 higher feeling for art than we have, and took good care 
 not to interrupt their actors. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. The most amusing instance of puffery 
 I know, and which always sets me off laughing when I 
 think of it, is that of which some pill manufactory is 
 accused. In the open shop you see a line of people busily 
 making up these pills in boxes, and sealing the covers 
 with an anxious rapidity, as if the orders were unlimited, 
 and as if poor humanity could not exist a moment longer 
 without its due supply of pills. Then, underground, they 
 tell me, there is another line of persons who are as busily 
 employed in undoing these packages, and throwing the 
 pills back into barrels. This is very humorous. Se non 
 evero, e ben trovato. 
 
 Ellesmere. Now the puffery that tickles me is of a 
 more gentlemanly and diplomatic kind. You enter a room 
 where there is a picture for exhibition, perhaps a work 
 of real merit ; but still they call in the aid of puffery. 
 You observe a gentlemanly person who comes hastily into 
 the room, looks anxiously at the picture, and regrets that 
 it will not be exhibited for more than three days longer. 
 Or he is very eager to purchase an engraving of the 
 picture, hearing that there are not many to be had now. 
 Perhaps if you were to come again a few hours hence, you
 
 224 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 would find the same individual rushing in and making 
 the same remarks in exactly the same language. I sup- 
 pose it would be too expensive to pay a man who could 
 vary his language. But the device is highly comical, 
 I think. 
 
 All these stories tend to prove my assertion, that the 
 trumpet must be largely and loudly blown. 1 would rest 
 my argument on this solid ground : if bad things require 
 to be puffed ; how much more must good things ? I heard 
 Dunsford mention once in a sermon that whatever is bad 
 has an attraction for mankind. If, then, this innate 
 attractiveness cannot be relied on, and you must still 
 have the aid of puffing, what would become of that which 
 is naturally repulsive, because it is good, if you were 
 foolish enough to leave it to make its way by its own 
 merits only ? 
 
 Dunsford. Oh, you sophist ! 
 
 Milverton. Now, good people, do not be afraid that I 
 am going to join with Ellesmere, but what he has been 
 saying has suggested something to me which I must 
 impart to you. I do think with him that much force is 
 often wasted by most of it being applied directly. The 
 study, for instance, of times, seasons, and opportunities of 
 putting forward anything is almost as requisite as study 
 about the thing itself. Indeed I would go further, and am 
 not afraid to say, that if I cared for any reform very 
 much, and it had to be advocated in Parliament, I 
 would not, with my present knowledge of the world, 
 as a young member, bring that subject prominently for- 
 ward, especially if it were one distasteful to the public, 
 but would seek to gain force and reputation in other
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF- ADVANCEMENT. 225 
 
 ways, and bide my time as regards the reform I had most 
 at heart. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. What a long way off Milvcrton has led 
 us from Ellesmere's pleasant and ironical baseness. 
 
 Ellesmere. I repudiate Milverton's assistance, and I 
 deny Mr. Midhurst's '"'pleasantry and irony." I say that 
 puffing, and advertising, and managing the world about 
 the reception of the thing you want to get received, are 
 half the battle. I suppose I must remind you for the 
 hundredth time, that I am not drawing the picture of a 
 perfect man, but of a man who is to get on in the world — 
 in this imperfect, earthy, dirty world. 
 
 Milverton. Of course there is a great deal of truth in 
 what Ellesmere says. 
 
 Ellesmere. You are the only fair person of all my 
 audience. 
 
 Milverton. But this fact (I do not mean that I am a 
 fair person, but that puffing does so much,) makes it only 
 more requisite that men in power should endeavour to 
 further the unpuffed man, and to look well into the un- 
 trumpeted work of art, the not highly-connected project, 
 and the device that has few influential friends. 
 
 Ellesmere. That maybe. That is a wise and very just 
 corollary from my proposition, but does not in the least 
 diminish its validity. The truth is, Dunsford, that if you 
 should ever publish this essay of mine, it is the only part 
 of your book which men of the world will take the trouble 
 of reading. They will pretend to have read the rest, 
 because it is always creditable to have read a dull book, 
 and the duller the more creditable. But my pages will be 
 the dogs-eared ones ; except of course in the copies that 
 
 VOL. I. [2nd Series.] P
 
 226 FKIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 belong to girls, clergymen, philanthropists, and other good 
 sort of simple, weak-minded people, whom nobody would 
 care to have as readers of his work. 
 
 Milverton, Now about the style of the essay : I really 
 must say something on that head. Ellesmere has so often 
 criticised my style, that now, when " the whirligig of Time 
 has brought round its revenges," I should be more than 
 mortal if I were to refrain from saying something a little 
 disagreeable. The sentences seemed to come upon one, 
 like, as I imagine, shot would descend from a shot-making 
 tower — little, round, hard, unconnected things. There 
 was a want, if I may venture to say so, of what Horace 
 would call " crafty joinings " {pallida junctura). It was 
 not an essay so much as a speech. At one time he seemed 
 to be addressing us : at another, his self-advancing 
 scoundrel : at another, his shot were aimed at anybody or 
 nobody. Then his quotations came in like the references 
 of lawyers to cases ; and Thiers, Thurlow, Sir Walter 
 Scott, Mrs. Malaprop, and Lord Peterborough were 
 alluded to, just as he would have quoted Robinson v. 
 Smith (Simon's Reports); or Jones v. Jones (Brown's 
 Chancery Cases) ; and so on. 
 
 Ellesmere. I disdain to reply to this revengeful criti- 
 cism. I told you before, that I did not wish to become a 
 classic ; and I am glad to see that, in the opinion of so 
 good a judge, I have no chance of becoming one. Answer 
 my arguments if you can, and do not comment on the 
 form in which they are conveyed. 
 
 Milverton. There certainly are some good things in 
 the essay. 
 
 Ellesmere. Good things, in it ! I believe there are
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 227 
 
 and such as you, of all men, might profit by. Indeed 
 I put in one or two of them on purpose for you, you 
 ungrateful man. You desire power, do you not ? You 
 will never get it unless you change very much. Once in 
 power, you will be unscrupulous enough. I do not mean 
 anything offensive. I mean that you would make and 
 accept conclusions rapidly and decisively, that you would 
 indulge in compromises and be contented like the rest of 
 us with the second and third best instead of foolishly 
 aiming at a fancied perfection. But in getting to power 
 you would be as scrupulous as a tender-hearted girl. As 
 a friend I like you the better for this ; as a man of the 
 world, I despise you, Sir. If you were to canvass a con- 
 stituency, you would bring out all the points of difference 
 instead of slurring these points over judiciously. If they 
 were raging for the Ballot, you would sedulously point 
 out all the dangers and difficulties of the measure, and 
 even be inclined to conceal any favourable opinion that 
 you might have of any of its bearings. Good creatures 
 such men may be (you may observe that the word 
 "creature" is always applied contemptuously), but you 
 are despicable as politicians. 
 
 Milvcrton. Ellesmere seems to be thoroughly imbued 
 with the notion contained in that Eastern proverb — " The 
 meanest of reptiles are found on the tops of the highest 
 pillars." Now I do not believe that that proverb applies 
 to the West so strongly. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, you must admit, however, that there 
 should be a little judicious slime expended in mounting. 
 
 Dunsfonl. I could not help thinking all the time that 
 Ellesmere was enumerating his various subtle basenesses,
 
 2 28 . FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 of the great saying, " Heaven is probably a place for those 
 who have failed upon earth." 
 
 Ellesmere. No doubt there are many pretty sayings 
 in vogue with the unsuccessful. I do not find, however, 
 that they make use of these sayings until they have 
 failed. 
 
 Dunsford. I interrupted you, Blanche, some time ago 
 when you were asking your cousin to quote a stanza from 
 the Laodamia. It would come in well now. 
 
 Milverton. 
 
 " He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure ; 
 No fears to beat away — no strife to heal — 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure ; 
 Spake of heroic acts in graver mood 
 Revived, with finer harmony pursued ; 
 
 " Of all that is most beauteous — imaged there 
 In happier beauty ; more pellucid streams, 
 An ampler ether, a diviner air, 
 And fields invested with purpureal gleams ; 
 Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day 
 Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey." 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, there is one thing, Milverton, I do 
 envy you ; but it is not an accomplishment which my 
 man of the world will be anxious to possess. Indeed, I 
 shall not let him have it. It is the power of quoting 
 from memory all manner of beautiful bits — or what, at 
 least, you suppose to be beautiful bits — of poetry and 
 prose. 
 
 Milverton. I have all my life made a point of learning 
 by heart the few things in any author which I exceedingly 
 admire. They are to me great possessions • and some-
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 229 
 
 times, when I am travelling alone, I pass the greater part 
 of a day in taking stock, as commercial men would say — 
 in seeing what I do know and can accurately repeat. I 
 dare say they are by no means the most beautiful extracts 
 from the respective authors. Indeed, I am almost sure 
 they arc not ; but they are those that have pleased my 
 fancy, or captivated my affections ; and, as I have not 
 seen reason to dismiss any of them from my mind, I 
 suppose they were sincerely adopted — I mean they were 
 such as specially pleased me, and not such as I was told 
 to admire. 
 
 Blanche. How delightful it would be, if we were to 
 pass a morning in questioning you, and seeing what you 
 had learnt by heart in remarkable authors ! 
 
 Ellesmere. We should certainly find out all his weak- 
 nesses ; we know a good many of them already. How- 
 ever, if Milverton would consent to be a talking book of 
 elegant extracts for the nonce, it would not be a very- 
 disagreeable way of spending time, and it would get rid • 
 of the taste (I thank you, Miss Blanche, for that choice 
 and gracious metaphor) of my essay, which, I can see, is 
 odious to all of you, and the more so, because you must 
 feel that you are persons for whom it is especially requisite 
 to study my injunctions. If you had attended to them 
 earlier in life, Dunsford would now be Mr. Dean ; Mil- 
 verton would be the Right Honourable Leonard Milverton, 
 and the leader of a party ; Mr. Midhurst would be chief 
 cook to the Emperor Napoleon ; the bull-dog would have 
 been promoted to the parlour ; I, but no man is wise for 
 himself, should have been Lord Chancellor ; Walter would 
 be at the head of his class without having any more
 
 ?30 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 knowledge than he has at present ; and, as for you two 
 girls, one would be a Maid of Honour to the Queen, 
 and the other would have married the richest man in the 
 county. 
 
 Dttnsford. Should we have been any happier ? 
 
 Ellesmere. There you are off again into space. Did I 
 pretend, my good man, to write a sermon ? Did I say 
 that my hero would be a hero at all, that is, in your sense 
 of the word? I merely meant him to be a person to get 
 on in the world. But really, without intending any especial 
 offence to the present company, there is not more than 
 one man out of two thousand five hundred and thirty- 
 seven who keeps to the point ; and all of you belong to 
 the two thousand five hundred and thirty-six who do not. 
 However, we will quit the subject. It will be far more 
 pleasant now to exercise that quoting-machine, Milverton. 
 Let the boy have his turn first. Now, Walter, you are 
 probably aware that your father has read every stupid 
 book in the world, and knows the stupidest bits in each 
 of them by heart. 
 
 Walter. No: they are not the stupidest; they are 
 the best. 
 
 Ellesmere. Well, Walter, if they are, you need not hit 
 me so hard in the abdominal regions to prove it. But you 
 are quite as logical and rational as the rest of the company. 
 How the little imp sticks up for his father, right or wrong ! 
 What will you have, Walter ? 
 
 Walter. I should like a bit of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 Milverton. " It was on a Friday, the twenty-fourth of 
 June, that, having now completed my hut, and laid up a 
 store of yams and birds' eggs, I walked down upon the
 
 O.V THE A R TS OF SELF- AD VA NCEMEXT. 2 3 1 
 
 sca-shorc. It was very hot, and the shade from the palm- 
 trees was very scant. I little thought, when I was an 
 apprentice boy at Bristol, where I first saw a dried palm- 
 leaf, that these trees would be my chief companions, 
 indeed, I may say, my only friends. The large turtles 
 crawled away from me, and I was too idle to follow them, 
 though I thought how many a Bristol merchant, even the 
 mayor, Sir John Wishart, had never given so ample and 
 succulent a repast to his friends as he would have done if 
 any of these noble reptiles had been brought over in one of 
 his ships. At this moment I turned to retrace my steps, 
 when I discerned a track in the sand. My heart began 
 to beat violently. It could not be my own footsteps, 
 for " 
 
 Walter. I do not remember any of this in the book, 
 Papa. 
 
 Milverton. Nor I, my dear. I was only inventing. I 
 will not attempt to deceive you any more ; for the truth, 
 I am ashamed to say, is, that I do not remember any of 
 my Robinson Crusoe accurately. 
 
 Ellesmere. Hurrah ! A break-down at the first start ! 
 Now, Dunsford, you are the next youngest ; at least the 
 next in innocency ; — may we say, in viridity ? 
 
 Dimsford. Well, I like the poetry that was poetry in 
 my time. I should like a bit of Pope — a long bit. 
 
 Milverton. 
 
 " The darksome pines that o'er yon rocks reclined 
 Wave high, and murmur to the hollow wind, 
 The wand'ring streams that shine between the hills, 
 The grots that echo to the tinkling rills, 
 The dying gales that pant upon the trees, 
 The lakes that quiver to the curling breeze :
 
 232 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 No more these scenes my meditations aid, 
 ( )r lull to rest the visionary maid : 
 But o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves, 
 Long-sounding aisles and intermingled graves, 
 Black melancholy sits, and round her throws 
 A death-like silence, and a dread repose ; 
 Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene, 
 Shades ev'ry flower and darkens every green, 
 Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, 
 And breathes a browner horror on the woods." 
 
 Punsford. Beautiful ! beautiful ! 
 
 " And breathes a browner horror on the woods." 
 
 Where will you beat that, Sir ? 
 
 Ellesmere. I am the next youngest. Give us a bit of 
 Churchill. That will rather puzzle you, I think. 
 
 Milverton. I think not. 
 
 " 'Tis not the babbling of an idle world, 
 Where praise and censure are at random hurled, 
 That can the meanest of my thoughts control, 
 Or shake one settled purpose of my soul. 
 Free and at large might their wild curses roam 
 If all, if all, alas, were well at home." 
 
 Ellesmere. Upon my word, they are very good. Now 
 let us have a bit of Dr. Johnson — not his poetry, though. 
 I protest against Irene, 
 
 Milverton. " The prince desired a little kingdom in 
 which he might administer justice in his own person, and 
 see all the parts of government with his own eyes ; but he 
 could never fix the limits of his dominions, and was always 
 adding to the number of his subjects.
 
 ON 7 HE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 233 
 
 " Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be driven 
 along the stream of life without directing their course to 
 any particular port. 
 
 " Of these wishes that they had formed they well knew 
 that none could be obtained. They deliberated awhile 
 what was to be done, and resolved, when the inundation 
 should cease, to return to Abyssinia." 
 
 Ellesmere. You being juvenile, Walter, have an un- 
 limited supply of audacity. Ask your father to give us 
 something of his own — a favourite bit of his writing. 
 
 Milverton. With pleasure : I would not let modesty 
 hinder for a moment my endeavours to oblige this 
 company, especially Ellesmere. Let me think for a minute 
 or two, and I shall be able, perhaps, to remember some- 
 thing. 
 
 "It might be a dream, it might be more than a dream, 
 but, methought, that I wandered like another Dante 
 conducted by another Virgil, and came upon regions not 
 depicted in the awful poem of the great Florentine. My 
 mind, abjuring gloomier scenes, dwells upon one in which 
 Comedy was strangely mingled with Tragedy. The place 
 itself was not lugubrious. There were pleasant plains, 
 grassy hillocks, tinkling rivulets, trees like our trees, and 
 other trees totally unlike the trees of earth, but showing 
 innumerable fantasies unknown to us, of leaf, of bud, of 
 blossom. One peculiarity marked the scene, and rendered 
 it different from all that I had hitherto beheld. Everywhere 
 the land was divided by innumerable boundaries, some- 
 times of lava stones, sometimes of trellised vines, sometimes 
 of the forked aloe ; and smaller portions were divided
 
 234 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 again by glittering ropes. The whole landscape, which 
 otherwise would have been gracious and beautiful, was 
 deformed by landmarks. 
 
 " A people of acute countenance, ready speech, and 
 trouble ever in their anxious eyes, occupied these regions. 
 I could not but note that their gaze was never at the land- 
 scape, but always fixed upon these boundaries. Their 
 demeanour to each other was most strange. They did not 
 dwell apart, but seemed most eager for companionship. 
 They were for ever accosting each other ; but, after a few 
 minutes' conference, they separated from each other with 
 looks of disgust and aversion. These movements were 
 repeated so often as to present the appearance of a 
 regulated dance. After watching them till I began to 
 grow dizzy, I turned with looks of bewilderment to my 
 conductor. 
 
 " He smiled for the first time ; and, sighing, said, 'All 
 these, my friend, were lawyers upon earth, and this is the 
 Purgatory of Lawyers. Each spirit longs to promote a 
 suit, and believes that he has one entrusted to him. Each 
 spirit believes that he is liable to a suit, and dreads with 
 a horror unknown, except to Lawyers, the expenses and 
 the worry of the suit. They confer together, as you see ; 
 each thinks that he has found a client, and begins to talk 
 with earnestness and volubility of the other's cause that is 
 soon coming on. After a few moments each finds that he 
 is not meeting with a client, but with another lawyer 
 wishing to undertake his affairs, and in a state of happy 
 volubility about the other's law-suit. They separate, 
 as you behold, with undisguised disgust upon their 
 countenances. For ages they will commingle together in
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 235 
 
 this dread dance of law; but never will any one meet with 
 the one he wishes to detain, for no client will ever enter 
 these eternal regions of discord about nothing. Endlessly 
 fleeing from law on their own behalf, endlessly seeking for 
 law on behalf of others, they pass their time in ea 
 pursuit and utter discomfiture.'" 
 
 You do not wish for any more, do you, Ellesmere ? 
 
 Ellcsmcre. I have had quite enough ! This kind of 
 vulgar prejudice against the defenders of property has 
 been common in all ages — and is as ungrateful as it is 
 common. 
 
 Milverton. I must confess it is a great shame in me 
 to say anything against lawyers, for my best friends are 
 lawyers, but one cannot help having some fun sometimes 
 about their ways of going on • and certainly it is amusing 
 to observe the horror that lawyers themselves have of law. 
 A humorous friend of mine, who is always getting up 
 imaginary companies, says that nothing would pay like a 
 company for instituting frivolous suits against great 
 lawyers. He has made out his calculations, and asserts 
 that fifty thousand a year is to be derived in this way 
 from the Chancery bar alone. 
 
 Elles7>icre. I am persuaded that Milverton keeps these 
 little bits of pleasant fiction ready in his mind to fire off 
 upon me. He never wrote that dream of his, and he could 
 not have been so glib with it, if it were entirely new to 
 him. 
 
 I know this, that if clients complain of their lawyers, 
 lawyers may sometimes complain of their clients. I have 
 received a letter this morning, from which I can dimly
 
 236 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 make out that there is something which I ought to do, or 
 ought not to do, but which of the two I cannot tell, for the 
 whole letter is a hopeless puzzle of intemperate scratches, 
 ending with a wild flourish by way of signature. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. There are two things which Milverton 
 ought to have dwelt upon in his essay on " Worry," and 
 which, knowing his aversion to both of them, I ex- 
 pected to hear something about — unpunctuality and bad 
 writing. 
 
 Milverton. It is certainly astonishing to see how very 
 few people write legibly. T can't think how it is that bad 
 writers make up their minds to lose so much force as they 
 do by bad writing. If you address anything to a corre- 
 spondent, you want him to understand it at once. You 
 want it to come with its full force upon his mind. Accord- 
 ingly, if you write a word badly, you had better erase it, 
 and write the word over again carefully. You do not wish 
 your friend to puzzle over what you are imparting to him. 
 Had writers cannot now plead great examples for bad 
 writing. It is a curious thing, but going back for a long 
 period, you may notice that, with few exceptions, prime 
 ministers have been remarkably good writers. Canning, 
 I am told, wrote an exquisite hand; the Duke of Welling- 
 ton a clear and noble one; Sir Robert Peel a most legible 
 hand, a thought perhaps too mercantile for beauty, but 
 still an excellent hand. Lord Palmerston's handwriting is 
 a model of good penmanship: Lord John Russell's forcible 
 and distinct ; and I might continue to give a long list of 
 eminent men who have not disdained to take much pains 
 with their handwriting. I mention these statesmen be- 
 cause all of them had, or have, to write a great quantity
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 237 
 
 in the course of most days, and might fairly be excused if 
 they wrote badly. 
 
 I am sorry to condemn bad writing, for it hits some of 
 my best friends very hard — men who seem to do every- 
 thing well but their writing; and though in general I am 
 not inclined to give up my friend Plato, whom I do know, 
 for that abstraction called Truth,* whom I seldom have 
 the pleasure of meeting in society ; yet I must confess 
 that bad handwriting is a blemish. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. The strangest thing in the way of bad 
 writing, which, however, is very frequent, is when a man 
 indites the body of his letter with sufficient clerkly skill, 
 but makes the signature what Ellesmere would call 
 " a hopeless puzzle of intemperate scratches." The man 
 is perhaps unknown to you, and you really do not know 
 how to address him in reply. 
 
 Milverlon. Yes, that is very absurd. But, the truth 
 is, that, notwithstanding all the pains we are taking with 
 education, there are three common things which are 
 hardly ever sufficiently attended to — reading, writing, 
 and weighing and measuring. 
 
 How few people know how to read ! The bar, the 
 senate, and the church show that. When any docu- 
 ment is read in court, how badly for the most part it is 
 given out. In private life, too, how little good reading 
 there is. 
 
 I owe a great deal to my mother for having taught me 
 to read. Week after week, month after month, she would 
 
 * Milverton, of course, alluded to the old saying, " Amicus 
 Socrates, amicus Plato, sed magis arnica Veritas."
 
 23S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 exercise me for an hour or two every day in reading, 
 bestowing the utmost care on the pronunciation of each 
 word. The good lady probably thought, this boy will 
 have tutors and schoolmasters who will teach him lan- 
 guages and mathematics and all manner of fine things, 
 but none of them will teach him how to read. I will do 
 that for him. And she had a great deal to do, for by 
 nature I had much difficulty in pronouncing clearly. I 
 am very grateful to her for the pains she took, and believe 
 that most mothers could hardly devote themselves to a 
 more important thing in the education of their children 
 than teaching them to read. How much better than if 
 she had taught me a little bad French with a strong 
 English pronunciation, which I should have had to 
 unlearn. 
 
 Dunsford. It is very true. I am well aware how 
 much as a clergyman I lose from reading badly, as I 
 know I do. I was never taught to read ; and no doubt 
 it is a great art. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. But what do you mean by what you 
 said about weighing and measuring ? 
 
 Milverton. I mean what I said. Amongst all classes, 
 and especially in the lower, there is next to no skill in 
 weighing and measuring. If I were an Inspector of 
 schools, I would carry with me weights and scales and 
 measures of all kinds. I would then read out some 
 receipt for the girls and some problem for the boys ; pro- 
 duce my weights and measures with the materials to be 
 weighed and measured ; and would have the weighing 
 and measuring done before my eyes, to my satisfaction. 
 Jjid you ever know a she-cook who was sufficiently
 
 ON THE ARTS OF SELF-ADVANCEMENT. 239 
 
 inclined to weigh and measure ? Certainly not. They 
 dislike doing a thing which they have never been prac- 
 tised to do. 
 
 Mr. Midhurst. Ah, this indeed is sensible — A Daniel 
 come to an Inspectorship ! 
 
 Milverton. Then, if in education we could add some 
 knowledge of music — I mean of the scientific part of 
 music, the principles of harmony, what accomplished 
 creatures we should turn out. Think of a human being 
 who can read his own language well, write legibly, do 
 accounts well (that in all national schools they are won- 
 derfully versed in at present), weigh and measure accu- 
 rately, and appreciate, if not produce, harmony in music. 
 Such a person would be sure to be useful, and would be 
 good company anywhere. He would probably be able 
 to speak out, an accomplishment at present of the rarest 
 kind. 
 
 Ellesmcre. Do not go anymore into education. It is 
 an interminable subject, and we have really talked enough 
 for one day. We shall dislike one another if we talk 
 much more. Besides, I mean to go on with my own 
 education, and to get up three irregular verbs in German 
 in the course of the day. I advise you all to do the same. 
 There is no change of thought so pleasant for a man 
 jaded with business as getting up even a little of a foreign 
 language, if it be but enough to spell out a paragraph in 
 a foreign newspaper. I always turn to the English news, 
 and find it quite interesting to discover, by the aid of 
 a pocket dictionary, from the Cologne Gazette, that the 
 weather is rainy in England, that Prince Albert went out 
 deer-stalking the other day, and that Sir Wood, by which
 
 240 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 I suppose they mean Sir Charles Wood, has given a 
 sensible lecture to his constituents at Halifax. I can 
 assure you I did not come to the knowledge of these 
 facts yesterday without a good deal of hard work, and I 
 value them accordingly. 
 
 Here we all rose, and the conversation was con- 
 cluded. 
 
 END OF VOL I. 
 
 PRINTED liV BA1.I.ANTVNK, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
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