Part 20 (1/2)
”You like England best?” resumed the Queen.
”Madam, I am an Englishman! To me there is no land so fair, or so much worth living and dying for, as England!”
”Yet--I suppose, like all your countrymen, you are fond of change?”
”Yes--and no, Madam!” replied Langton.--”In truth, if I am to speak frankly, it is only during the last thirty or forty years that my countrymen have blotted their historical scutcheons by this fondness for change. Where travelling is necessary for the attainment of some worthy object, then it is wise and excellent,--but where it is only for the purpose of distracting a self-satiated mind, it is of no avail, and indeed frequently does more harm than good.”
”Self-satiated!” repeated the Queen,--”Is not that a strange word?”
”It is the only compound expression I can use to describe the discontented humour in which the upper cla.s.ses of English society exist to-day,” replied Sir Walter. ”For many years the soul of England has been held in chains by men whose thoughts are all of Self,--the honour of England has been attainted by women whose lives are moulded from first to last on Self. To me, personally, England is everything,--I have no thought outside it--no wish beyond it. Yet I am as ashamed of some of its leaders of opinion to-day, as if I saw my own mother dragged in the dust and branded with infamy!”
”You speak of your Government?” began the Queen.
”No, Madam,--I have no more quarrel with my country's present Government than I could have with a child who is led into a ditch by its nurse. It is a weak and corrupted Government; and its actual rulers are vile and abandoned women.”
The Queen's eyes opened in a beautiful, startled wonderment;--this man's clear, incisive manner of speech interested her.
”Women!” she echoed, then smiled; ”You speak strongly, Sir Walter! I have certainly heard of the 'advanced' women who push themselves so much forward in your country, but I had no idea they were so mischievous! Are they to be admired? Or pitied?”
”Pitied, Madam,--most sincerely pitied!” returned Sir Walter;--”But such misguided simpletons as these are not the creatures who rule, or play with, or poison the minds of the various members who compose our Government. The 'advanced' women, poor souls, do nothing but talk plat.i.tudes. They are perfectly harmless. They have no power to persuade men, because in nine cases out of ten, they have neither wit nor beauty.
And without either of these two charms, Madam, it is difficult to put even a clever cobbler, much less a Prime Minister, into leading strings!
No,--it is the spendthrift women of a corrupt society that I mean,--the women who possess beauty, and are conscious of it,--the women who have a mordant wit and use it for dangerous purposes--the women who give up their homes, their husbands, their children and their reputations for the sake of villainous intrigue, and the feverish excitement of speculative money-making;--with these--and with the stealthy spread of Romanism,--will come the ruin of my country!”
”So grave as all that!” said the Queen lightly;--”But, surely, Sir Walter, if you see ruin and disaster threatening so great an Empire in the far distance, you and other wise men of your land are able to stave it off?”
”Madam, I have no power!” he returned bitterly. ”Those who have thought and worked,--those who are able to see what is coming by the light of past experience, are seldom listened to, or if they get a hearing, they are not seldom ridiculed and 'laughed down.' Till a strong man speaks, we must all remain dumb. There is no real Government in England at present, just as there is no real Church. The Government is made up of directly self-interested speculators and financiers rather than diplomatists,--the Church, for which our forefathers fought, is yielding to the bribery of Rome. It is a time of Sham,--sham politics, and sham religion! We have fallen upon evil days,--and unless the people rise, as it is to be hoped to G.o.d they will, serious danger threatens the glory and the honour of England!”
”Would you desire revolution and bloodshed, then?” enquired the Queen, becoming more and more interested as she saw that this Englishman did not, like most of his s.e.x, pa.s.s the moments in gazing at her in speechless admiration,--”Surely not!”
”I would have revolution, Madam, but not bloodshed,” he replied;--”I think my countrymen are too well grounded in common-sense to care for any movement which could bring about internal dissension or riot,--but, at the same time, I believe their native sense of justice is great enough to resist tyranny and wrong and falsehood, even to the death. I would have a revolution--yes--but a silent and bloodless one!”
”And how would you begin?” asked the Queen.
”The People must begin, Madam!” he answered;--”All reforms must begin and end with the People only! For example, if the People would decline to attend any church where the inc.u.mbent is known to encourage practices which are disloyal to the faith of the land, such disloyalty would soon cease. If the majority of women would refuse to know, or to receive, any woman of high position who had voluntarily disgraced herself, they would soon put a stop to the lax morality of the upper cla.s.ses. If our builders, artisans and mechanics would club together, and refuse to make guns or s.h.i.+ps for our enemies in foreign countries, we should not run the risk of being one day hoisted with our own petard. In any case, the work of Revolution rests with the people, though it is quite true they need teachers to show them how to begin.”
”And are these teachers forthcoming?”
”I think so!” said Sir Walter meditatively. ”Throughout all history, as far back as we can trace it, whenever a serious reform has been needed in either society or government, there has always been found a leader to head the movement.”
The Queen's beautiful eyes rested upon him with a certain curiosity.
”What of your King?” she said.
”Madam, he is my King!” he replied,--”And I serve him faithfully!”
She was silent. She began to wonder whether he had any private motive to gain, any place he sought to fill, that he should a.s.sume such a touch-me-not air at this stray allusion to his Sovereign.
”Lese-majeste is so common nowadays!” she mused;--”It is such an ordinary thing to hear vulgar _parvenus_ talk of their king as if he were a public-house companion of theirs, that it is somewhat remarkable to find one who speaks of his monarch with loyalty and respect.
I suppose, however, like everyone else, he has his own ends to serve!--Kings are the last persons in the world who can command absolute fidelity!”