Middlemarch, Page 51

  CHAPTER LI.

  Party is Nature too, and you shall see By force of Logic how they both agree: The Many in the One, the One in Many; All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any: Genus holds species, both are great or small; One genus highest, one not high at all; Each species has its differentia too, This is not That, and He was never You, Though this and that are AYES, and you and he Are like as one to one, or three to three.

  No gossip about Mr. Casaubon's will had yet reached Ladislaw: the airseemed to be filled with the dissolution of Parliament and the comingelection, as the old wakes and fairs were filled with the rival clatterof itinerant shows; and more private noises were taken little noticeof. The famous "dry election" was at hand, in which the depths ofpublic feeling might be measured by the low flood-mark of drink. WillLadislaw was one of the busiest at this time; and though Dorothea'swidowhood was continually in his thought, he was so far from wishing tobe spoken to on the subject, that when Lydgate sought him out to tellhim what had passed about the Lowick living, he answered ratherwaspishly--

  "Why should you bring me into the matter? I never see Mrs. Casaubon,and am not likely to see her, since she is at Freshitt. I never gothere. It is Tory ground, where I and the 'Pioneer' are no morewelcome than a poacher and his gun."

  The fact was that Will had been made the more susceptible by observingthat Mr. Brooke, instead of wishing him, as before, to come to theGrange oftener than was quite agreeable to himself, seemed now tocontrive that he should go there as little as possible. This was ashuffling concession of Mr. Brooke's to Sir James Chettam's indignantremonstrance; and Will, awake to the slightest hint in this direction,concluded that he was to be kept away from the Grange on Dorothea'saccount. Her friends, then, regarded him with some suspicion? Theirfears were quite superfluous: they were very much mistaken if theyimagined that he would put himself forward as a needy adventurer tryingto win the favor of a rich woman.

  Until now Will had never fully seen the chasm between himself andDorothea--until now that he was come to the brink of it, and saw her onthe other side. He began, not without some inward rage, to think ofgoing away from the neighborhood: it would be impossible for him toshow any further interest in Dorothea without subjecting himself todisagreeable imputations--perhaps even in her mind, which others mighttry to poison.

  "We are forever divided," said Will. "I might as well be at Rome; shewould be no farther from me." But what we call our despair is oftenonly the painful eagerness of unfed hope. There were plenty of reasonswhy he should not go--public reasons why he should not quit his post atthis crisis, leaving Mr. Brooke in the lurch when he needed "coaching"for the election, and when there was so much canvassing, direct andindirect, to be carried on. Will could not like to leave his ownchessmen in the heat of a game; and any candidate on the right side,even if his brain and marrow had been as soft as was consistent with agentlemanly bearing, might help to turn a majority. To coach Mr.Brooke and keep him steadily to the idea that he must pledge himself tovote for the actual Reform Bill, instead of insisting on hisindependence and power of pulling up in time, was not an easy task.Mr. Farebrother's prophecy of a fourth candidate "in the bag" had notyet been fulfilled, neither the Parliamentary Candidate Society nor anyother power on the watch to secure a reforming majority seeing a worthynodus for interference while there was a second reforming candidatelike Mr. Brooke, who might be returned at his own expense; and thefight lay entirely between Pinkerton the old Tory member, Bagster thenew Whig member returned at the last election, and Brooke the futureindependent member, who was to fetter himself for this occasion only.Mr. Hawley and his party would bend all their forces to the return ofPinkerton, and Mr. Brooke's success must depend either on plumperswhich would leave Bagster in the rear, or on the new minting of Toryvotes into reforming votes. The latter means, of course, would bepreferable.

  This prospect of converting votes was a dangerous distraction to Mr.Brooke: his impression that waverers were likely to be allured bywavering statements, and also the liability of his mind to stick afreshat opposing arguments as they turned up in his memory, gave WillLadislaw much trouble.

  "You know there are tactics in these things," said Mr. Brooke; "meetingpeople half-way--tempering your ideas--saying, 'Well now, there'ssomething in that,' and so on. I agree with you that this is apeculiar occasion--the country with a will of its own--politicalunions--that sort of thing--but we sometimes cut with rather too sharpa knife, Ladislaw. These ten-pound householders, now: why ten? Drawthe line somewhere--yes: but why just at ten? That's a difficultquestion, now, if you go into it."

  "Of course it is," said Will, impatiently. "But if you are to waittill we get a logical Bill, you must put yourself forward as arevolutionist, and then Middlemarch would not elect you, I fancy. Asfor trimming, this is not a time for trimming."

  Mr. Brooke always ended by agreeing with Ladislaw, who still appearedto him a sort of Burke with a leaven of Shelley; but after an intervalthe wisdom of his own methods reasserted itself, and he was again drawninto using them with much hopefulness. At this stage of affairs he wasin excellent spirits, which even supported him under large advances ofmoney; for his powers of convincing and persuading had not yet beentested by anything more difficult than a chairman's speech introducingother orators, or a dialogue with a Middlemarch voter, from which hecame away with a sense that he was a tactician by nature, and that itwas a pity he had not gone earlier into this kind of thing. He was alittle conscious of defeat, however, with Mr. Mawmsey, a chiefrepresentative in Middlemarch of that great social power, the retailtrader, and naturally one of the most doubtful voters in theborough--willing for his own part to supply an equal quality of teasand sugars to reformer and anti-reformer, as well as to agreeimpartially with both, and feeling like the burgesses of old that thisnecessity of electing members was a great burthen to a town; for evenif there were no danger in holding out hopes to all parties beforehand,there would be the painful necessity at last of disappointingrespectable people whose names were on his books. He was accustomed toreceive large orders from Mr. Brooke of Tipton; but then, there weremany of Pinkerton's committee whose opinions had a great weight ofgrocery on their side. Mr. Mawmsey thinking that Mr. Brooke, as nottoo "clever in his intellects," was the more likely to forgive a grocerwho gave a hostile vote under pressure, had become confidential in hisback parlor.

  "As to Reform, sir, put it in a family light," he said, rattling thesmall silver in his pocket, and smiling affably. "Will it support Mrs.Mawmsey, and enable her to bring up six children when I am no more? Iput the question _fictiously_, knowing what must be the answer. Verywell, sir. I ask you what, as a husband and a father, I am to do whengentlemen come to me and say, 'Do as you like, Mawmsey; but if you voteagainst us, I shall get my groceries elsewhere: when I sugar my liquorI like to feel that I am benefiting the country by maintainingtradesmen of the right color.' Those very words have been spoken tome, sir, in the very chair where you are now sitting. I don't mean byyour honorable self, Mr. Brooke."

  "No, no, no--that's narrow, you know. Until my butler complains to meof your goods, Mr. Mawmsey," said Mr. Brooke, soothingly, "until I hearthat you send bad sugars, spices--that sort of thing--I shall neverorder him to go elsewhere."

  "Sir, I am your humble servant, and greatly obliged," said Mr. Mawmsey,feeling that politics were clearing up a little. "There would be somepleasure in voting for a gentleman who speaks in that honorable manner."

  "Well, you know, Mr. Mawmsey, you would find it the right thing to putyourself on our side. This Reform will touch everybody by-and-by--athoroughly popular measure--a sort of A, B, C, you know, that must comefirst before the rest can follow. I quite agree with you that you'vegot to look at the thing in a family light: but public spirit, now.We're all one family, you know--it's all one cupboard. Such a thingas a vote, now: why, it may help to make men's fortunes at theCape--there's no knowing what may be the effect of a vote," Mr. Brookeended, w
ith a sense of being a little out at sea, though finding itstill enjoyable. But Mr. Mawmsey answered in a tone of decisive check.

  "I beg your pardon, sir, but I can't afford that. When I give a vote Imust know what I am doing; I must look to what will be the effects onmy till and ledger, speaking respectfully. Prices, I'll admit, arewhat nobody can know the merits of; and the sudden falls after you'vebought in currants, which are a goods that will not keep--I've never;myself seen into the ins and outs there; which is a rebuke to humanpride. But as to one family, there's debtor and creditor, I hope;they're not going to reform that away; else I should vote for thingsstaying as they are. Few men have less need to cry for change than Ihave, personally speaking--that is, for self and family. I am not oneof those who have nothing to lose: I mean as to respectability both inparish and private business, and noways in respect of your honorableself and custom, which you was good enough to say you would notwithdraw from me, vote or no vote, while the article sent in wassatisfactory."

  After this conversation Mr. Mawmsey went up and boasted to his wifethat he had been rather too many for Brooke of Tipton, and that hedidn't mind so much now about going to the poll.

  Mr. Brooke on this occasion abstained from boasting of his tactics toLadislaw, who for his part was glad enough to persuade himself that hehad no concern with any canvassing except the purely argumentativesort, and that he worked no meaner engine than knowledge. Mr. Brooke,necessarily, had his agents, who understood the nature of theMiddlemarch voter and the means of enlisting his ignorance on the sideof the Bill--which were remarkably similar to the means of enlisting iton the side against the Bill. Will stopped his ears. OccasionallyParliament, like the rest of our lives, even to our eating and apparel,could hardly go on if our imaginations were too active about processes.There were plenty of dirty-handed men in the world to do dirtybusiness; and Will protested to himself that his share in bringing Mr.Brooke through would be quite innocent.

  But whether he should succeed in that mode of contributing to themajority on the right side was very doubtful to him. He had writtenout various speeches and memoranda for speeches, but he had begun toperceive that Mr. Brooke's mind, if it had the burthen of rememberingany train of thought, would let it drop, run away in search of it, andnot easily come back again. To collect documents is one mode ofserving your country, and to remember the contents of a document isanother. No! the only way in which Mr. Brooke could be coerced intothinking of the right arguments at the right time was to be well pliedwith them till they took up all the room in his brain. But here therewas the difficulty of finding room, so many things having been taken inbeforehand. Mr. Brooke himself observed that his ideas stood rather inhis way when he was speaking.

  However, Ladislaw's coaching was forthwith to be put to the test, forbefore the day of nomination Mr. Brooke was to explain himself to theworthy electors of Middlemarch from the balcony of the White Hart,which looked out advantageously at an angle of the market-place,commanding a large area in front and two converging streets. It was afine May morning, and everything seemed hopeful: there was someprospect of an understanding between Bagster's committee and Brooke's,to which Mr. Bulstrode, Mr. Standish as a Liberal lawyer, and suchmanufacturers as Mr. Plymdale and Mr. Vincy, gave a solidity whichalmost counterbalanced Mr. Hawley and his associates who sat forPinkerton at the Green Dragon. Mr. Brooke, conscious of havingweakened the blasts of the "Trumpet" against him, by his reforms as alandlord in the last half year, and hearing himself cheered a little ashe drove into the town, felt his heart tolerably light under hisbuff-colored waistcoat. But with regard to critical occasions, itoften happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until the last.

  "This looks well, eh?" said Mr. Brooke as the crowd gathered. "I shallhave a good audience, at any rate. I like this, now--this kind ofpublic made up of one's own neighbors, you know."

  The weavers and tanners of Middlemarch, unlike Mr. Mawmsey, had neverthought of Mr. Brooke as a neighbor, and were not more attached to himthan if he had been sent in a box from London. But they listenedwithout much disturbance to the speakers who introduced the candidate,one of them--a political personage from Brassing, who came to tellMiddlemarch its duty--spoke so fully, that it was alarming to thinkwhat the candidate could find to say after him. Meanwhile the crowdbecame denser, and as the political personage neared the end of hisspeech, Mr. Brooke felt a remarkable change in his sensations while hestill handled his eye-glass, trifled with documents before him, andexchanged remarks with his committee, as a man to whom the moment ofsummons was indifferent.

  "I'll take another glass of sherry, Ladislaw," he said, with an easyair, to Will, who was close behind him, and presently handed him thesupposed fortifier. It was ill-chosen; for Mr. Brooke was anabstemious man, and to drink a second glass of sherry quickly at nogreat interval from the first was a surprise to his system which tendedto scatter his energies instead of collecting them. Pray pity him: somany English gentlemen make themselves miserable by speechifying onentirely private grounds! whereas Mr. Brooke wished to serve hiscountry by standing for Parliament--which, indeed, may also be done onprivate grounds, but being once undertaken does absolutely demand somespeechifying.

  It was not about the beginning of his speech that Mr. Brooke was at allanxious; this, he felt sure, would be all right; he should have itquite pat, cut out as neatly as a set of couplets from Pope. Embarkingwould be easy, but the vision of open sea that might come after wasalarming. "And questions, now," hinted the demon just waking up in hisstomach, "somebody may put questions about the schedules.--Ladislaw,"he continued, aloud, "just hand me the memorandum of the schedules."

  When Mr. Brooke presented himself on the balcony, the cheers were quiteloud enough to counterbalance the yells, groans, brayings, and otherexpressions of adverse theory, which were so moderate that Mr. Standish(decidedly an old bird) observed in the ear next to him, "This looksdangerous, by God! Hawley has got some deeper plan than this." Still,the cheers were exhilarating, and no candidate could look more amiablethan Mr. Brooke, with the memorandum in his breast-pocket, his lefthand on the rail of the balcony, and his right trifling with hiseye-glass. The striking points in his appearance were his buffwaistcoat, short-clipped blond hair, and neutral physiognomy. He beganwith some confidence.

  "Gentlemen--Electors of Middlemarch!"

  This was so much the right thing that a little pause after it seemednatural.

  "I'm uncommonly glad to be here--I was never so proud and happy in mylife--never so happy, you know."

  This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing; for,unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away--even couplets from Popemay be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear clutches us, and aglass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among our ideas. Ladislaw, whostood at the window behind the speaker, thought, "it's all up now. Theonly chance is that, since the best thing won't always do, flounderingmay answer for once." Mr. Brooke, meanwhile, having lost other clews,fell back on himself and his qualifications--always an appropriategraceful subject for a candidate.

  "I am a close neighbor of yours, my good friends--you've known me onthe bench a good while--I've always gone a good deal into publicquestions--machinery, now, and machine-breaking--you're many of youconcerned with machinery, and I've been going into that lately. Itwon't do, you know, breaking machines: everything must go on--trade,manufactures, commerce, interchange of staples--that kind ofthing--since Adam Smith, that must go on. We must look all over theglobe:--'Observation with extensive view,' must look everywhere, 'fromChina to Peru,' as somebody says--Johnson, I think, 'The Rambler,' youknow. That is what I have done up to a certain point--not as far asPeru; but I've not always stayed at home--I saw it wouldn't do. I'vebeen in the Levant, where some of your Middlemarch goods go--and then,again, in the Baltic. The Baltic, now."

  Plying among his recollections in this way, Mr. Brooke might have gotalong, easily to himself, and would have come back from the remotestseas
without trouble; but a diabolical procedure had been set up by theenemy. At one and the same moment there had risen above the shouldersof the crowd, nearly opposite Mr. Brooke, and within ten yards of him,the effigy of himself: buff-colored waistcoat, eye-glass, and neutralphysiognomy, painted on rag; and there had arisen, apparently in theair, like the note of the cuckoo, a parrot-like, Punch-voiced echo ofhis words. Everybody looked up at the open windows in the houses atthe opposite angles of the converging streets; but they were eitherblank, or filled by laughing listeners. The most innocent echo has animpish mockery in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker, andthis echo was not at all innocent; if it did not follow with theprecision of a natural echo, it had a wicked choice of the words itovertook. By the time it said, "The Baltic, now," the laugh which hadbeen running through the audience became a general shout, and but forthe sobering effects of party and that great public cause which theentanglement of things had identified with "Brooke of Tipton," thelaugh might have caught his committee. Mr. Bulstrode asked,reprehensively, what the new police was doing; but a voice could notwell be collared, and an attack on the effigy of the candidate wouldhave been too equivocal, since Hawley probably meant it to be pelted.

  Mr. Brooke himself was not in a position to be quickly conscious ofanything except a general slipping away of ideas within himself: he hadeven a little singing in the ears, and he was the only person who hadnot yet taken distinct account of the echo or discerned the image ofhimself. Few things hold the perceptions more thoroughly captive thananxiety about what we have got to say. Mr. Brooke heard the laughter;but he had expected some Tory efforts at disturbance, and he was atthis moment additionally excited by the tickling, stinging sense thathis lost exordium was coming back to fetch him from the Baltic.

  "That reminds me," he went on, thrusting a hand into his side-pocket,with an easy air, "if I wanted a precedent, you know--but we never wanta precedent for the right thing--but there is Chatham, now; I can't sayI should have supported Chatham, or Pitt, the younger Pitt--he was nota man of ideas, and we want ideas, you know."

  "Blast your ideas! we want the Bill," said a loud rough voice from thecrowd below.

  Immediately the invisible Punch, who had hitherto followed Mr. Brooke,repeated, "Blast your ideas! we want the Bill." The laugh was louderthan ever, and for the first time Mr. Brooke being himself silent,heard distinctly the mocking echo. But it seemed to ridicule hisinterrupter, and in that light was encouraging; so he replied withamenity--

  "There is something in what you say, my good friend, and what do wemeet for but to speak our minds--freedom of opinion, freedom of thepress, liberty--that kind of thing? The Bill, now--you shall have theBill"--here Mr. Brooke paused a moment to fix on his eye-glass and takethe paper from his breast-pocket, with a sense of being practical andcoming to particulars. The invisible Punch followed:--

  "You shall have the Bill, Mr. Brooke, per electioneering contest, and aseat outside Parliament as delivered, five thousand pounds, sevenshillings, and fourpence."

  Mr. Brooke, amid the roars of laughter, turned red, let his eye-glassfall, and looking about him confusedly, saw the image of himself, whichhad come nearer. The next moment he saw it dolorously bespattered witheggs. His spirit rose a little, and his voice too.

  "Buffoonery, tricks, ridicule the test of truth--all that is verywell"--here an unpleasant egg broke on Mr. Brooke's shoulder, as theecho said, "All that is very well;" then came a hail of eggs, chieflyaimed at the image, but occasionally hitting the original, as if bychance. There was a stream of new men pushing among the crowd;whistles, yells, bellowings, and fifes made all the greater hubbubbecause there was shouting and struggling to put them down. No voicewould have had wing enough to rise above the uproar, and Mr. Brooke,disagreeably anointed, stood his ground no longer. The frustrationwould have been less exasperating if it had been less gamesome andboyish: a serious assault of which the newspaper reporter "can averthat it endangered the learned gentleman's ribs," or can respectfullybear witness to "the soles of that gentleman's boots having beenvisible above the railing," has perhaps more consolations attached toit.

  Mr. Brooke re-entered the committee-room, saying, as carelessly as hecould, "This is a little too bad, you know. I should have got the earof the people by-and-by--but they didn't give me time. I should havegone into the Bill by-and-by, you know," he added, glancing atLadislaw. "However, things will come all right at the nomination."

  But it was not resolved unanimously that things would come right; onthe contrary, the committee looked rather grim, and the politicalpersonage from Brassing was writing busily, as if he were brewing newdevices.

  "It was Bowyer who did it," said Mr. Standish, evasively. "I know itas well as if he had been advertised. He's uncommonly good atventriloquism, and he did it uncommonly well, by God! Hawley has beenhaving him to dinner lately: there's a fund of talent in Bowyer."

  "Well, you know, you never mentioned him to me, Standish, else I wouldhave invited him to dine," said poor Mr. Brooke, who had gone through agreat deal of inviting for the good of his country.

  "There's not a more paltry fellow in Middlemarch than Bowyer," saidLadislaw, indignantly, "but it seems as if the paltry fellows werealways to turn the scale."

  Will was thoroughly out of temper with himself as well as with his"principal," and he went to shut himself in his rooms with ahalf-formed resolve to throw up the "Pioneer" and Mr. Brooke together.Why should he stay? If the impassable gulf between himself andDorothea were ever to be filled up, it must rather be by his going awayand getting into a thoroughly different position than by staying hereand slipping into deserved contempt as an understrapper of Brooke's.Then came the young dream of wonders that he might do--in five years,for example: political writing, political speaking, would get a highervalue now public life was going to be wider and more national, and theymight give him such distinction that he would not seem to be askingDorothea to step down to him. Five years:--if he could only be surethat she cared for him more than for others; if he could only make heraware that he stood aloof until he could tell his love without loweringhimself--then he could go away easily, and begin a career which atfive-and-twenty seemed probable enough in the inward order of things,where talent brings fame, and fame everything else which is delightful.He could speak and he could write; he could master any subject if hechose, and he meant always to take the side of reason and justice, onwhich he would carry all his ardor. Why should he not one day belifted above the shoulders of the crowd, and feel that he had won thateminence well? Without doubt he would leave Middlemarch, go to town,and make himself fit for celebrity by "eating his dinners."

  But not immediately: not until some kind of sign had passed between himand Dorothea. He could not be satisfied until she knew why, even if hewere the man she would choose to marry, he would not marry her. Hencehe must keep his post and bear with Mr. Brooke a little longer.

  But he soon had reason to suspect that Mr. Brooke had anticipated himin the wish to break up their connection. Deputations without andvoices within had concurred in inducing that philanthropist to take astronger measure than usual for the good of mankind; namely, towithdraw in favor of another candidate, to whom he left the advantagesof his canvassing machinery. He himself called this a strong measure,but observed that his health was less capable of sustaining excitementthan he had imagined.

  "I have felt uneasy about the chest--it won't do to carry that toofar," he said to Ladislaw in explaining the affair. "I must pull up.Poor Casaubon was a warning, you know. I've made some heavy advances,but I've dug a channel. It's rather coarse work--this electioneering,eh, Ladislaw? dare say you are tired of it. However, we have dug achannel with the 'Pioneer'--put things in a track, and so on. A moreordinary man than you might carry it on now--more ordinary, you know."

  "Do you wish me to give it up?" said Will, the quick color coming inhis face, as he rose from the writing-table, and took a turn of threesteps with his hands in his pockets. "I
am ready to do so whenever youwish it."

  "As to wishing, my dear Ladislaw, I have the highest opinion of yourpowers, you know. But about the 'Pioneer,' I have been consulting alittle with some of the men on our side, and they are inclined to takeit into their hands--indemnify me to a certain extent--carry it on, infact. And under the circumstances, you might like to give up--mightfind a better field. These people might not take that high view of youwhich I have always taken, as an alter ego, a right hand--though Ialways looked forward to your doing something else. I think of havinga run into France. But I'll write you any letters, you know--toAlthorpe and people of that kind. I've met Althorpe."

  "I am exceedingly obliged to you," said Ladislaw, proudly. "Since youare going to part with the 'Pioneer,' I need not trouble you about thesteps I shall take. I may choose to continue here for the present."

  After Mr. Brooke had left him Will said to himself, "The rest of thefamily have been urging him to get rid of me, and he doesn't care nowabout my going. I shall stay as long as I like. I shall go of my ownmovements and not because they are afraid of me."