XCVIII
The corners of Hardy’s room were covered with sheets of paper of different sizes, pasted against the wall in groups. In the line of sight, from about the height of four to six feet, there was scarcely an inch of the original paper visible, and round each centre group there were outlying patches and streamers, stretching towards floor or ceiling, or away nearly to the bookcases or fireplace.
“Well, don’t you think it a great improvement on the old paper?” said Hardy. “I shall be out of rooms next term, and it will be a hint to the College that the rooms want papering. You’re no judge of such matters, or I should ask you whether you don’t see great artistic taste in the arrangement.”
“Why, they’re nothing but maps, and lists of names and dates,” said Tom, who had got up to examine the decorations. “And what in the world are all these queer pins for?” he went on, pulling a strong pin with a large red sealing-wax head out of the map nearest to him.
“Hullo! take care there; what are you about?” shouted Hardy, getting up and hastening to the corner. “Why, you irreverent beggar, those pins are the famous statesmen and warriors of Greece and Rome.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn’t know I was in such august company;” saying which, Tom proceeded to stick the red-headed pin back into the wall.
“Now, just look at that,” said Hardy, taking the pin out from the place where Tom had stuck it. “Pretty doings there would be amongst them with your management. This pin is Brasidas; you’ve taken him away from Naupactus, where he was watching the eleven Athenian galleys anchored under the temple of Apollo, and stuck him down right in the middle of the Pnyx, where he will be instantly torn in pieces by a ruthless and reckless mob. You call yourself a Tory indeed! However, ’twas always the same with you Tories; calculating, cruel, and jealous. Use your leaders up, and throw them over – that’s the golden rule of aristocracies.”
“Hang Brasidas,” said Tom, laughing; “stick him back at Naupactus again. Here, which is Cleon? The scoundrel! give me hold of him, and I’ll put him in a hot berth.”
“That’s he, with the yellow head. Let him alone, I tell you, or all will be hopeless confusion when Grey comes for his lecture. We’re only in the third year of the war.”
“I like your chaff about Tories sacrificing their great men,” said Tom, putting his hands in his pockets to avoid temptation. “How about your precious democracy, old fellow? Which is Socrates?”
“Here, the dear old boy! – this pin with the great gray head, in the middle of Athens, you see. I pride myself on my Athens. Here’s the Piræus and the long walls, and the hill of Mars. Isn’t it as good as a picture?”
“Well, it is better than most maps, I think,” said Tom; “but you’re not going to slip out so easily. I want to know whether your pet democracy did or did not murder Socrates.”
“I’m not bound to defend democracies. But look at my pins. It may be the natural fondness of a parent, but I declare they seem to me to have a great deal of character, considering the material. You’ll guess them at once, I’m sure, if you mark the color and shape of the wax. This one now, for instance, who is he?”
“Alcibiades,” answered Tom, doubtfully.
“Alcibiades!” shouted Hardy; “you fresh from Rugby, and not know your Thucydides better than that. There’s Alcibiades, that little purple-headed, foppish pin, by Socrates. This rusty colored one is that respectable old stick-in-the-mud, Nicias.”
“Well, but you’ve made Alcibiades nearly the smallest of the whole lot,” said Tom.
“So he was, to my mind,” said Hardy; “just the sort of insolent young ruffian whom I should have liked to buy at my price, and sell at his own. He must have been very like some of our gentlemen-commoners, with the addition of brains.”
“I should really think, though,” said Tom, “it must be a capital plan for making you remember the history.”
“It is, I flatter myself. I’ve long had the idea, but I should never have worked it out and found the value of it but for Grey. I invented it to coach him in his history. You see we are in the Grecian corner. Over there is the Roman. You’ll find Livy and Tacitus worked out there, just as Herodotus and Thucydides are here; and the pins are stuck for the Second Punic War, where we are just now. I shouldn’t wonder if Grey got his first, after all, he’s picking up so quick in my corners; and says he never forgets any set of events when he has pricked them out with the pins.”
XCIX
The Reformation had to do its work in due course, in temporal as well as in spiritual things, in the visible as in the invisible world; for the Stuart princes asserted in temporal matters the powers which the Pope had claimed in spiritual. They, too, would acknowledge the sanctity of no law above the will of princes – would vindicate, even with the sword and scaffold, their own powers to dispense with laws. So the second great revolt of the English nation came, against all visible earthly sovereignty in things temporal. Puritanism arose, and Charles went to the block, and the proclamation went forth that henceforth the nation would have no king but Christ; that he was the only possible king for the English nation from that time forth, in temporal as well as spiritual things, and that his kingdom had actually come. The national conscience was not with the Puritans as it had been with Henry at the time of the Reformation, but the deepest part of their protest has held its own, and gained strength ever since, from their day to ours. The religious source and origin of it was, no doubt, thrust aside at the Revolution, but the sagacious statesmen of 1688 were as clear as the soldiers of Ireton and Ludlow in their resolve, that no human will should override the laws and customs of the realm. So they, too, required of their sovereigns that they should “solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same; … that they will to the utmost of their power maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion established by law.” The same protest in a far different form came forth again at the great crisis at the end of the eighteenth century, when the revolutionary literature of France had set Europe in a blaze, and the idea of the rights of man had shrunk back, and merged in the will of the mob. Against this assertion of this form of self-will again the English nation took resolute ground. They had striven for a law which was above popes and kings, to which these must conform on pain of suppression. They strove for it now against mob-law, against popular will, openly avowing its own omnipotence, and making the tyrant’s claim to do what was right in its own eyes. And so through our whole history the same thread has run. The nation, often confusedly and with stammering accents, but still on the whole consistently, has borne the same witness as the Church, that as God is living and reigning there must be a law, the expression of his will, at the foundation of all human society, which priests, kings, rulers, people must discover, acknowledge, obey.
C
Christians may acknowledge that, as a rule, and in the long run, the decision of a country, fairly taken, is likely to be right, and that the will of the people is likely to be more just and patient than that of any person or class. No one can honestly look at the history of our race in the last quarter of a century, to go no farther back, and not gladly admit the weight of evidence in favor of this view. There is no great question of principle which has arisen in politics here, in which the great mass of the nation has not been from the first on that which has been at last acknowledged as the right side. In America, to take one great example, the attitude of the Northern people from first to last, in the great civil war, will make proud the hearts of English-speaking men as long as their language lasts.
CI
The real public opinion of a nation, expressing its deepest conviction (as distinguished from what is ordinarily called public opinion, the first cry of professional politicians and journalists, which usually goes wrong,) is undoubtedly entitled to very great respect. But after making all fair allowances, no honest man, however warm a democrat he may be, can shut his eyes to the facts which stare him in the face at home, in our colonies, in the United States, and refuse to acknowledge that the will of the majority in a nation, ascertained by the best processes yet known to us, is not always or altogether just, or consistent, or stable; that the deliberate decisions of the people are not unfrequently tainted by ignorance, or passion, or prejudice.
Are we, then, to rest contented with this ultimate regal power, to resign ourselves to the inevitable, and admit that for us, here at last in this nineteenth century, there is nothing higher or better to look for; and if we are to have a king at all, it must be king people or king mob, according to the mood in which our section of collective humanity happens to be? Surely we are not prepared for this any more than the Pope is. Many of us feel that Tudors, and Stuarts, and Oliver Cromwell, and cliques of Whig or Tory aristocrats, may have been bad enough; but that any tyranny under which England has groaned in the past has been light by the side of what we may come to, if we are to carry out the new political gospel to its logical conclusion, and surrender ourselves to government by the counting of heads, pure and simple.
But if we will not do this is there any alternative, since we repudiate personal government, but to fall back on the old Hebrew and Christian faith, that the nations are ruled by a living, present, invisible King, whose will is perfectly righteous and loving, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever? It is beside the question to urge that such a faith throws us back on an invisible power, and that we must have visible rulers. Of course we must have visible rulers, even after the advent of the “confederate social republic of Europe.” When the whole people is king it must have viceroys like other monarchs. But is public opinion visible? Can we see “collective humanity?” Is it easier for princes or statesmen – for any man or men upon whose shoulders the government rests – to ascertain the will of the people than the will of God? Another consideration meets us at once, and that is, that this belief is assumed in our present practice. Not to insist upon the daily usage in all Christian places of worship and families throughout the land, the Parliament of the country opens its daily sittings with the most direct confession of this faith which words can express, and prays – addressing God, and not public opinion, or collective humanity – “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Surely it were better to get rid of this solemn usage as a piece of cant, which must demoralize the representatives of the nation, if we mean nothing particular by it, and either recast our form of prayer, substituting “the people,” or what else we please, for “God,” or let the whole business alone, as one which passes man’s understanding. If we really believe that a nation has no means of finding out God’s will, it is hypocritical and cowardly to go on praying that it may be done.
But it will be said, assuming all that is asked, what practical difference can it possibly make in the government of nations? Admit as pointedly as you can, by profession and by worship, and honestly believe, that a Divine will is ruling in the world, and in each nation, what will it effect? Will it alter the course of events one iota, or the acts of any government or governor. Would not a Neapolitan Bourbon be just as ready to make it his watchword as any English Alfred! Might not a committee of public safety placard the scaffold with a declaration of this faith? It is a contention for a shadow.
Is it so? Does not every man recognize in his own life, and in his own observation of the world around him, the enormous and radical difference between the two principles of action and the results which they bring about? What man do we reckon worthy of honor, and delight to obey and follow – him who asks, when he has to act, what will A, B, and C say to this? or him who asks, is this right, true, just, in harmony with the will of God. Don’t we despise ourselves when we give way to the former tendency, or in other words, when we admit the sovereignty of public opinion? Don’t we feel that we are in the right and manly path when we follow the latter? And if this be true of private men, it must hold in the case of those who are in authority.
Those rulers, whatever name they may go by, who turn to what constituents, leagues, the press are saying or doing, to guide them as to the course they are to follow, in the faith that the will of the majority is the ultimate and only possible arbiter, will never deliver or strengthen a nation however skilful they may be in occupying its best places.
CII
All the signs of our time tell us that the day of earthly kings has gone by, and the advent to power of the great body of the people, those who live by manual labor, is at hand. Already a considerable percentage of them are as intelligent and provident as the classes above them, and as capable of conducting affairs, and administering large interests successfully. In England, the co-operative movement and the organization of the trade societies should be enough to prove this, to any one who has eyes, and is open to conviction. In another generation that number will have increased tenfold, and the sovereignty of the country will virtually pass into their hands. Upon their patriotism and good sense the fortunes of the kingdom will depend as directly and absolutely as they have ever depended on the will of earthly king or statesman. It is vain to blink the fact that democracy is upon us, that “new order of society which is to be founded by labor for labor,” and the only thing for wise men to do is to look it in the face, and see how the short intervening years may be used to the best advantage. Happily for us, the task has been already begun in earnest. Our soundest and wisest political thinkers are all engaged upon the great and inevitable change, whether they dread, or exult in the prospect. Thus far, too, they all agree that the great danger of the future lies in that very readiness of the people to act in great masses, and to get rid of personal and individual responsibility, which is the characteristic of the organizations by which they have gained, and secured, their present position. Nor is there any danger as to how this danger is to be met. Our first aim must be to develop to the utmost the sense of personal and individual responsibility.
But how is this to be done? To whom are men wielding great powers to be taught that they are responsible? If they can learn that there is still a King ruling in England through them, whom if they will fear they need fear no other power in earth or heaven, whom if they can love and trust they will want no other guide or helper, all will be well, and we may look for a reign of justice in England such as she has never seen yet, whatever form our government may take. But, in any case, those who hold the old faith will still be sure that the order of God’s kingdom will not change. If the kings of the earth are passing away, because they have never acknowledged the order which was established for them, the conditions on which they were set in high places, those who succeed them will have to come under the same order, and the same conditions. When the great body of those who have done the hard work of the world, and got little enough of its wages hitherto – the real stuff of which every nation is composed – have entered on their inheritance, they may sweep away many things, and make short work with thrones and kings. But there is one throne which they cannot pull down – the throne of righteousness, which is over all the nations; and one King whose rule they cannot throw off – the Son of God and Son of Man, who will judge them as he has judged all kings and all governments before them.
CIII
Kings, priests, judges, whatever men succeed to, or usurp, or are thrust into power, come immediately under that eternal government which the God of the nation has established, and the order of which cannot be violated with impunity. Every ruler who ignores or defies it saps the national life and prosperity, and brings trouble on his country, sometimes swiftly, but always surely. There is the perpetual presence of a King, with whom rulers and people must come to a reckoning in every national crisis and convulsion, and who is no less present when the course of affairs is quiet and prosperous. The greatest and wisest men of the nation are those in whom this faith burns most strongly. Elijah’s solemn opening, “As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand;” David’s pleading, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” – his confession that in heaven or hell, or the uttermost parts of the sea, “there also shall thy hand lead, and thy right hand shall guide me” – are only well-known instances of a universal consciousness which never wholly leaves men or nations, however much they may struggle to get rid of it.
CIV
“Who is that who has just come in, in beaver?” said Tom, touching the next man to him.
“Oh, don’t you know? That’s Blake; he’s the most wonderful fellow in Oxford,” answered his neighbor.
“How do you mean?” said Tom.
“Why, he can do everything better than almost anybody, and without any trouble at all. Miller was obliged to have him in the boat last year though he never trained a bit. Then he’s in the eleven, and is a wonderful rider, and tennis-player, and shot.”
“Aye, and he’s so awfully clever with it all,” joined in the man on the other side. “He’ll be a safe first, though I don’t believe he reads more than you or I. He can write songs, too, as fast as you can talk nearly, and sings them wonderfully.”
“Is he of our College, then?”
“Yes, of course, or he couldn’t have been in our boat last year.”
“But I don’t think I ever saw him in chapel or hall.”
“No, I dare say not. He hardly ever goes to either, and yet he manages never to get hauled up much, no one knows how. He never gets up now till the afternoon, and sits up nearly all night playing cards with the fastest fellows, or going round singing glees at three or four in the morning.”
Tom looked with great interest at the admirable Crichton of St. Ambrose’s; and, after watching him a few minutes, said in a low tone to his neighbor:
“How wretched he looks! I never saw a sadder face.”
Poor Blake! one can’t help calling him “poor,” although he himself would have winced at it more than at any other name you could have called him. You might have admired, feared, or wondered at him, and he would have been pleased; the object of his life was to raise such feelings in his neighbors; but pity was the last which he would have liked to excite.
He was indeed a wonderfully gifted fellow, full of all sorts of energy and talent, and power and tenderness; and yet, as his face told only too truly to any one who watched him when he was exerting himself in society, one of the most wretched men in the College. He had a passion for success – for beating everybody else in whatever he took in hand, and that, too, without seeming to make any great effort himself. The doing a thing well and thoroughly gave him no satisfaction unless he could feel that he was doing it better and more easily than A, B, or C, and that they felt and acknowledged this. He had had his full swing of success for two years, and now the Nemesis was coming.
For, although not an extravagant man, many of the pursuits in which he had eclipsed all rivals were far beyond the means of any but a rich one, and Blake was not rich. He had a fair allowance, but by the end of his first year was considerably in debt, and, at the time we are speaking of, the whole pack of Oxford tradesmen, into whose books he had got (having smelt out the leanness of his expectations), were upon him, besieging him for payment. This miserable and constant annoyance was wearing his soul out. This was the reason why his oak was sported, and he was never seen till the afternoons, and turned night into day. He was too proud to come to an understanding with his persecutors, even had it been possible; and now, at his sorest need, his whole scheme of life was failing him; his love of success was turning into ashes in his mouth; he felt much more disgust than pleasure at his triumphs over other men, and yet the habit of striving for such successes, notwithstanding its irksomeness, was too strong to be resisted.
Poor Blake! he was living on from hand to mouth, flashing out with all his old brilliancy and power, and forcing himself to take the lead in whatever company he might be; but utterly lonely and depressed when by himself – reading feverishly in secret, in a desperate effort to retrieve all by high honors and a fellowship. As Tom said to his neighbors, there was no sadder face than his to be seen in Oxford.