Volume I Part 13 (2/2)
Tuesday Morning, When I had written so far last night, the arrival of a travelling carriage and four, with a Courier preceding, caused such a commotion in the little inn that, notwithstanding all my a.s.sumed indifference, I could not entirely escape the contagion, and, at last, was fain to open my window and stare at the new arrival with all the hardihood that becomes him already in possession of an apartment. ”I took little by my motion.” All I saw was a portly travelling carriage, heavily laden with its appurtenances and imperials, well-corded springs, rope-lashed pole, and double drag-chains,--evidences of caution and signs of long-projected travel.
I might have readily forgotten the new comer--indeed, I had almost done so ere I closed the window--had not his memory been preserved for me by a process peculiar to small and unfrequented inns,--a species of absorption by which the traveller of higher pretensions invariably draws in all the stray articles of comfort scattered through the establishment. First my table took flight, and in its place a small and ricketty thing of white deal had arrived; next followed a dressing-gla.s.s; then waddled forth a fat, unwieldy, old arm-chair, that seemed by its difficulty of removal to have strong objections to locomotion; and lastly, a chest of drawers set out on its travels, but so stoutly did it resist, that it was not captured without the loss of two legs, while every drawer was thrown out upon the floor, to the manifest detriment of the waiter's s.h.i.+ns and ankles. These ”distraints”
I bore well and equably, and it was only a summary demand to surrender a little sofa on which I lay that at length roused me from my apathy, and I positively demurred, asking, I suppose, querulously enough, who it was that required the whole accommodation of the inn, and could spare nothing for another traveller? An ”English Prince” was the answer; at which I could not help laughing, well knowing that the t.i.tle is tolerably indiscriminate in its application. Indeed, I once heard Colonel Sibthorp called such.
It is all very well to affect indifference and apathy, to pretend that you care nothing who or what your neighbour in an inn may be. This is very practicable where his ident.i.ty takes no more corporeal shape than No. 42 or 53 in some great overgrown hotel. But imagine yourself in some small secluded spot, some little nook, of which you had half fancied you were the first discoverer--conceiving yourself a kind of new Perouse; fancy, then, when in the very ecstasy of your adventure, the arrival of a travelling carriage and four, with a belted Courier and a bearded Valet; not only are your visions routed, but your own ident.i.ty begins to dissolve away with them. You are neither a hero to yourself nor to ”mine host.” His best smiles, his deepest reverence, are now for the last comer, for whose accommodation a general tribute is levied. Do what you will, say what you will, there is no remaining deaf to the incessant turmoil that bespeaks the great man's wants. There is a perpetual hurry-scurry to seek this and fetch that; soda-water--tea--champagne--a fire--hot water--are continually echoing along the corridor, and ”the Prince” seems like some vast ”Maelstrom” that all the larder and the cellar contain can never satiate. Such, certainly, the least exacting of men appear when under the auspices of a Courier and the host of a small inn.
The poverty of the establishment makes the commonest requirements seem the demand of a Sybarite indulgence, and every-day wants are luxuries where cleanliness is the highest of virtues.
I was--I own it--worried and vexed by the clamour and movement, that not even coming night calmed down. The repose and quiet I had been so fully enjoying were gone, and, in their place, the vulgar noises and tumult of a little inn. All these interruptions, intimately a.s.sociated in my mind with the traveller, invested him, to me, with a character perfectly detestable, so that there was somewhat of open defiance in my refusal to yield up my sofa.
A pause followed. What was to come next? I listened and waited in half anxiety, wondering what new aggression might ensue; but all was still: nay, there was a clattering of knives and forks, and then went the pop of a cork--”the Prince” was eating. ”Well,” thought I, ”there is some vengeance here, for the _cuisine_ is detestable.” ”His Highness” thought so too, for more than one _plat_ was dismissed, accompanied by a running commentary of abuse on the part of the Courier.
At last came a really tranquil moment. The cheese had been sent away as uneatable, and the Courier had followed it, cursing manfully, if I might p.r.o.nounce from the odour wafted to my own chamber, not unreasonably. ”Mi Lor le Prince” was probably composing himself to a siesta; there was a stealthy quietude in the step of his servant along the corridor that said so much. I had scarcely made the reflection when a tap came to my door. ”The Prince” wished for an English newspaper, and the host had seen two on my table. The ”Post” and the ”Chronicle” were both before me, and I sent them, half wondering which best might suit his Highness's politics.
Another tap at the door! Really this is intolerable. Has he not had my table, my arm-chair, my newspapers--what will he ask for next? ”Come in,” said I, now trying English, after in vain shouting ”Entrez” and ”Herein” three times over.
An English servant entered, and in that peculiarly low, demure tone, so distinctive of his caste, said,--
”Sir Robert Chawuth presents his compliments, and begs to know if he may pay his respects to Mr. Templeton?”
”Is Sir Robert here? is that his carriage?” said I, hastily.
”Yes, sir; he came about an hour ago.”
”Oh, very well. Say, I shall feel great pleasure in seeing him. Is he disengaged at present?”
”Yes, sir, he is quite alone.”
”Shew me his apartment, then.”
”So,” thought I, as I arose to seek the chamber, ”this time they were nearer right than usual; for, if not an 'English Prince,' he has wielded more substantial power, and exerted a much wider sway over the destinies of the world, than ever a 'foreign Prince' from the Baltic to the Bosphorus.”
Strange enough, our last meeting was at Downing Street; he was then Minister. I waited upon him by appointment, as I was leaving England for the Prussian mission, and _he_ desired to give me his own instructions before I sailed; and now, I visit him in a little Tyrol ”Gasthaus,” he, dest.i.tute of power, and myself----
It would be presumptuous in one so humbly placed to hazard an opinion on the subject; but if I were to dare it, I should say that the statesmen of England possess a range of knowledge and a wider intimacy with the actual condition of the world as it is than any other cla.s.s, in any country. I was greatly struck with this last evening. The topics wandered far a-field, varying from the Poor Laws to Hong Kong, from the Health of Towns to the state of the Peninsula: Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, the Navigation Laws, the policy of Louis Philippe, and the rot in the potatoes; and on each of these themes he not only spoke well, but he spoke with a degree of knowledge that smacked of a special study. ”How comes it,” I asked myself, ”that this man, with the weighty cares of a mighty empire on his brain, has time to hear and memory to retain little traits of various people in remote quarters of the world?
How, for instance, did he hear, or why remember, these anecdotes of the present Landamman of Switzerland, Ochsenbein?” And yet there were good reasons perhaps, to remember them. The man who has personally shewn the white feather will scarcely be courageous as the head of a government, though there is great reason to suspect that he may exhibit all the rashness of cowardice--its worst, because its most dangerous, quality.
I had often suspected, but I never knew before, how completely this Minister had usurped every department of the Cabinet, and concentrated in himself the Home, the Foreign, and the Colonial Governments. The very patronage, too, he had a.s.sumed; so that, in fact, his colleagues were comparatively without influence or occupation. I confess that, on hearing him talk so unconcernedly of mighty events and portentous changes, of great interests and powerful states, that my heart beat strongly with an ambitious ardour, and a feverish throbbing of my temples suggested to me that the longing for rank, and station, and power, had not yet died away within me. Was it with serious intention that he spoke to me of again entering Parliament and taking office in some future arrangement, or was it merely from a sense of compa.s.sion that he ministered this meed of encouragement to the hopes of a sick man? Whatever the motive, the result has been an increased buoyancy, more of vitality about me, than I have known for some time--a secret wis.h.i.+ng for life and strength to ”do something” ere I die.
He rather appeared pleased with a suggestion I threw out for augmenting the elective franchise in Ireland, by making the qualification ”an intellectual one,” and extending the right of voting to all who should take a certain degree or diploma in either the University of Dublin or any of the provincial colleges, all admitted as members of learned bodies, and all licentiates of law and physic. This would particularly suit the condition of Ireland, where property is a most inadequate and limited test, and at the same time, by an infusion of educated and thinking men into the ma.s.s, serve to counterbalance and even guide the opinions of those less capable of forming judgments. We are becoming more democratic every day. Let our trust be in well-informed, clearsighted democracy, and let the transition be from the aristocracy to the cultivated middle cla.s.ses, and not to the rule of Feargus O'Connor and his Chartists.
And now, to wander down this lonely glen, and forget, if I may, these jarring questions, where men's pa.s.sions and ambitions have more at stake than human happiness. Do what I will, think of what I will, the image of--Caroline Graham--yes, I must call her so, rises before me at every step. It is a sad condition of the nervous system when slight impressions cut deep. Like the diseased state of the mucous membrane, when tastes and odours cling and adhere to it for days long, I suppose that the prevalence of such images in the brain would at last lead to insanity, or, at least, that form of it called Monomania. Let no man suppose that this is so very rare a malady. Let us rather ask, Who is quite free from some feature of the affection? The mild cases are the pa.s.sionate ardour we see exhibited by men in the various and peculiar pursuits in life; the bad ones, only greater in degree, are shut up in asylums.
The most singular instance that ever occurred within my own knowledge was one I met several years back in Germany; and as ”thereby hangs a tale,” I will set it down in the words of the relator. This is his own recital--in his own handwriting too!
There are moments in the life of almost every man which seem like years.
The mind, suddenly calling up the memory of bygone days, lives over the early hours of childhood--the bright visions of youth, when all was promise and antic.i.p.ation--and traverses with a bound the ripe years of manhood, with all their struggles, and cares, and disappointments; and even throws a glance into the dark vista of the future, computing the ”to come” from the past; and, at such times as these, one feels that he is already old, and that years have gone over him.
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