It was natural that at such a time, when success great than had been expected had attended the efforts of the Liberals, when some dozen unexpected votes had been acquired, the leading politicians of that party should have found themselves compelled to look about them and see how these good things might be utilised. In February they certainly had not expected to be called to power in the course of the existing session. Perhaps they did not expect it yet. There was still a Conservative majority,--though but a small majority. But the strength of the minority consisted, not in the fact that the majority against them was small, but that it was decreasing. How quickly does the snowball grow into hugeness as it is rolled on;--but when the change comes in the weather how quickly does it melt, and before it is gone become a thing ugly, weak and formless! Where is the individual who does not assert to himself that he would be more loyal to a falling than to a rising friend?
Such is perhaps the nature of each one of us. But when any large number of men act together, the falling friend is apt to be deserted. There was a general feeling among politicians that Lord Drummond's ministry,--or Sir Timothy's--was failing, and the Liberals, though they could not yet count the votes by which they might hope to be supported in power, nevertheless felt that they ought to be looking to their arms.
There had been a coalition. They who are well read in the political literature of their country will remember all about that. It had perhaps succeeded in doing that for which it had been intended. The Queen's government had been carried on for two or three years. The Duke of Omnium had been the head of that Ministry; but, during those years had suffered so much as to have become utterly ashamed of the coalition,--so much as to have said often to himself that under no circumstances would he again join any Ministry. At this time there was no idea of another coalition.
That is a state of things which cannot come about frequently,--which can only be reproduced by men who have never hitherto felt the mean insipidity of such a condition. But they who had served on the Liberal side in that coalition must again put their shoulders to the wheel. Of course it was in every man's mouth that the Duke must be induced to forget his miseries and once more to take upon himself the duties of an active servant of the State.
But they who were most anxious on the subject, such men as Lord Cantrip, Mr Monk, our old friend Phineas Finn, and a few others, were almost afraid to approach him. At the moment when the coalition was broken up he had been very bitter in spirit, apparently almost arrogant, holding himself aloof from his late colleagues,--and since that, troubles had come to him, which had aggravated the soreness of his heart. His wife had died, and he had suffered much through his children. What Lord Silverbridge had done at Oxford was a matter of general conversation, and also what he had not done.
That the heir of the family should have become a renegade in politics was supposed to have greatly affected the father. Now Lord Gerald had been expelled from Cambridge, and Silverbridge was on the turf in conjunction with Major Tifto! Something, too, had oozed out into general ears about Lady Mary,--something which should have been kept secret as the grave. It had therefore come to pass that it was difficult even to address the Duke.
There was but one man, and but one, who could do this with ease to himself;--and that man was at last put into motion at the instance of the leaders of the party. The old Duke of St Bungay wrote the following letter to the Duke of Omnium. The letter purported to be an excuse for the writer's own defalcations. But the chief object of the writer was to induce the younger Duke once more to submit to harness.
'Longroyston, 3 June, 187-
'DEAR DUKE OF OMNIUM, 'How quickly the things come round! I had thought that I should never again have been called upon even to think of the formation of another Liberal Ministry; and now, though it was but yesterday that were all telling ourselves that we were thoroughly manumitted from our labours by the altered opinions of the country, sundry of our old friends have again been putting their heads together.
'Did they not do so they would neglect a manifest duty. Nothing is more essential to the political well-being of the country than that the leaders on both sides in politics should be prepared for their duties. But for myself, I am bound at last to put in the old plea with a determination that it shall be respected. "Solve senescentem." It is now, if I calculate rightly, exactly fifty years since I first entered public life in obedience to the advice of Lord Grey. I had then already sat five years in the House of Commons. I had assisted humbly in the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and have learned by the legislative troubles of just half a century that those whom we then invited to sit with us in Parliament have been in all things our worst enemies. But what then? had we benefited only those who love us, would not the sinners also,--or even the Tories,--have done as much as that?
'But such memories are of no avail now. I write to say that after so much of active political life, I will at last retire. My friends when they see me inspecting a pigsty or picking a peach are apt to remind me that I can still stand on my legs, and with more of compliment than of kindness will argue therefore that I ought still to undertake active duties in Parliament. I can select my own hours for pigs and peaches, and should I, through the dotage of age, make mistakes as to the breeding of one or the flavour of the other, the harm done will not go far. In politics I have done my work. What you and others in the arena do will interest me more than all other things in this world, I think and hope, to my dying day. But I will not trouble the workers with the querulousness of old age.