Part 37 (1/2)
I looked at my friend the brigadier for an explanation. After running his eye over the articles in the journals, the latter smiled, and cast a look of commiseration at our colleague.
”You have certainly committed a grave fault here, my friend,” he said, ”and one that is seldom forgiven in Leaplow--perhaps I might say never, during the occultation of the great moral postulate, as happens to be the case at present.”
”Tell me my sins at once, brigadier,” cried Noah, with the look of a martyr, ”and put me out of pain.”
”You have forgotten to display a motive for your stand during the late hot discussion; and, as a matter of course, the community ascribes the worst that monikin ingenuity can devise. Such an oversight would ruin even a G.o.d-like!”
”But, my dear Mr. Downright,” I kindly interposed, ”our colleague, in this instance, is supposed to have acted on principle.”
The brigadier looked up, turning his nose into the air, like a pup that has not yet opened its eyes, and then intimated that he could not see the quality I had named, it being obscured by the pa.s.sage of the orb of Pecuniary Interest before its disc. I now began to comprehend the case, which really was much more grave than, at first, I could have believed possible. Noah himself seemed staggered; for, I believe, he had fallen on the simple and natural expedient of inquiring what he himself would have thought of the conduct of a colleague who had given a vote on a subject so weighty, without exposing a motive.
”Had the captain owned but a foot square of earth, at the end of the causeway,” observed the brigadier, mournfully, ”the matter might be cleared up; but as things are, it is beyond dispute, a most unfortunate occurrence.”
”But Sir John voted with me, and he is no more a free-holder in Leaplow, than I am myself.”
”True; but Sir John voted with the bulk of his political friends.”
”All the Horizontals were not in the majority; for at least twenty went, on this occasion, with the minority.”
”Undeniable--yet every monikin of them had a visible motive. This owned a lot by the wayside; that had houses on the island, and another was the heir of a great proprietor at the same point of the road. Each and all had their distinct and positive interests at stake, and not one of them was guilty of so great a weakness as to leave his cause to be defended by the extravagant pretension of mere principle!”
”My G.o.d-like, the greatest of all the Riddles, absented himself, and did not vote at all.”
”Simply because he had no good ground to justify any course he might take. No public monikin can expect to escape censure, if he fail to put his friends, in the way of citing some plausible and intelligible motive for his conduct.”
”How, sir! cannot a man, once in his life, do an act without being bought like a horse or a dog, and escape with an inch of character?”
”I shall not take upon myself to say what MEN can do,” returned the brigadier; ”no doubt they manage this affair better than it is managed here; but, so far as monikins are concerned, there is no course more certain to involve a total loss of character--I may say so destructive to reputation even for intellect--as to act without a good, apparent, and substantial MOTIVE.”
”In the name of G.o.d, what is to be done, brigadier?”
”I see no other course than to resign. Your const.i.tuents must very naturally have lost all confidence in you; for one who so very obviously neglects his own interests, it cannot be supposed will be very tenacious about protecting the interests of others. If you would escape with the little character that is left, you will forthwith resign. I do not perceive the smallest chance for you by going through gyration No. 4, both public opinions uniformly condemning the monikin who acts without a pretty obvious, as well as a pretty weighty motive.”
Noah made a merit of necessity; and, after some further deliberation between us, he signed his name to the following letter to the speaker, which was drawn up on the spot, by the brigadier.
”Mr. Speaker:--The state of my health obliges me to return the high political trust which has been confided to me by the citizens of Bivouac, into the hands from which it was received. In tendering my resignation, I wish to express the great regret with which I part from colleagues so every way worthy of profound respect and esteem, and I beg you to a.s.sure them, that wherever fate may hereafter lead me, I shall ever retain the deepest regard for every honorable member with whom it has been my good fortune to serve. The emigrant interest, in particular, will ever be the nearest and dearest to my heart.” Signed,
”NOAH POKE.”
The captain did not affix his name to this letter without many heavy sighs, and divers throes of ambition; for even a mistaken politician yields to necessity with regret. Having changed the word emigrant to that of ”immigrunt,” however, he put as good a face as possible on the matter, and wrote the fatal signature. He then left the house, declaring he didn't so much begrudge his successor the pay, as nothing but nuts were to be had with the money; and that, as for himself, he felt as sneaking as he believed was the case with Nebuchadnezzar, when he was compelled to get down on all-fours, and eat gra.s.s.
CHAPTER XXIX. SOME EXPLANATIONS--A HUMAN APPEt.i.tE--A DINNER AND A BONNE BOUCHE.
The brigadier and myself remained behind to discuss the general bearings of this unexpected event.
”Your rigid demand for motives, my good sir,” I remarked, ”reduces the Leaplow political morality very much, after all, to the level of the social-stake system of our part of the world.”
”They both depend on the crutch of personal Interests, it is true; though there is, between them, the difference of the interests of a part and of the interests of the whole.”