CHAPTER XXI.
THE SECOND SPEECH.
Then came the second opportunity. It was three weeks after the first. The occasion was the first reading—or was it the second?—of a Bill for the prohibition of more than five—or was it fifty?—hours’ labour in the day, or something to that effect. For my own part, I concern myself about Acts of Parliament only when they bring the tax-gatherer to the door with his little piece of paper. It is a remarkable circumstance in this highly political country that our politics are mostly limited to getting one man in, and that we care very little, when he is once in, what he does, or what anyone else does. If you doubt this allegation, listen to the talk in the train, or where men gather together.
However, we knew it was coming, and Robert got me a seat in the Speaker’s Gallery, where I sat during the questions with as much patience as I could command. The Gallery was not crowded; the strangers were people up from the country, with a few Americans. They had opera-glasses, and whispered the names of the members whose faces they knew. The House of Commons is one of the sights of London, which is the reason why so few Londoners ever go to it. As for the House of Lords, I wonder how many Londoners have ever seen that august body in deliberation.
The Bill was introduced with a somewhat short and self-excusing speech. I wish I could remember what the Bill really proposed. Not that it mattered, however. As the subject was not attractive, the House rapidly thinned. There, again, we are the most political people in the world; but the moment a subject is introduced which deals with the realities of life, the welfare of the millions, the case of the unemployed, the rule of India, the agricultural depression, the safety of the Empire, the condition of the navy, the weakness of the army, the departure of trade, the silver question, the House is swiftly and suddenly thinned or emptied. I suppose the reason is that the human brain can only stand a certain amount of dull speech, and that these subjects generally fall into the hands of dull and uninteresting speakers. I really do not know what this speaker said. Presently he sat down. Then Robert arose. I think I was more anxious about his success than he was himself. He was perfectly calm and self-possessed. In his hand he held a small bundle of papers, a striking presence, and he began speaking slowly, with measured phrase, and with his rich musical voice, which at once commanded attention. Of all the gifts of oratory, the most useful is a rich and flexible voice. Then his first speech of three weeks ago, now almost forgotten, was again remembered, and the House became quickly filled again.
As I have forgotten what the Bill was about, and as I paid no attention to the first speaker’s Introduction of the Bill, and as I concentrated my attention to the style of Robert’s oratory and to the effect it produced, without the least reference to the matter, I cannot reproduce for you the substance of his speech. You may find it in Hansard; in fact, you are sure to find it in Hansard, if you please to look; you will also find it worth reading. He spoke on a labour question, from his own point of view, as one who was at once a craftsman and an employer. ‘I am myself,’ he said, with the pride of a duke and the appearance of a gentleman of ancient lineage—‘I am myself a Master Craftsman.’
Then he proceeded, from his own experience, and from quotations from Blue-books, to marshal his facts and to set forth his arguments. I did not listen; it was enough for me to let that rolling music of his voice play about my ears, and to watch its effects upon the faces below. Could he grip those faces? He could. Could he move those faces? He could. The average Parliamentary face is singularly cold. One might as well expect that one wave out of all the others would move a hard rock. Yet Robert moved that rocky face. Could he make those faces smile? He could. He had taught himself the lesson—the most difficult for some men to learn—that a speaker should be able to amuse. He related gently humorous anecdotes, so that the House bubbled with rippling laughter, which is far more delightful than the broad roar at more comic strokes. Robert would certainly never become the comic man of the House; but he might become one of the humorists. And this was a new development. Who would have imagined three months before this that the grimly-in-earnest young man, who was going to thunder his gospel into the unwilling ears of the House until he conquered it and laid it at his feet, had become one of those who could treat the most serious subjects from a humorous point of view, and convince by laughter where he would have failed by indignation?
I think, not being a critic, that Robert, like Mr. Gladstone, possessed the wonderful gift of being able to invest the baldest facts and the most intricate figures with interest and charm. Like a novelist, he made them personal. He connected figures with men, and brought facts into touch with humanity. And this he did, as it seemed, spontaneously, without effort or any appearance of lecturing. In the House of Commons a man must not be a lecturer, but an orator. The lecturer is necessarily a critic or a teacher. As lecturer, without imagination, he explains carefully how the orator, the poet, the novelist, the dramatist, produces his effects. He knows exactly, and can tell all the world how it is done—the trick of it. Yet he cannot produce the thing himself. Therefore he is of no use in the House. The orator, poet, dramatist, novelist, on the other hand, produces these effects continually; yet he cannot tell you how he does it.
Robert, then, had this gift of making things attractive. He spoke for an hour or more. The members remained in respectful silence until he worked them up into producing their signs of approbation, of which the House is never chary when it is moved.
When he sat down it was with the pleasing consciousness that he had at least made the House for the second time ask whether they had actually got another coming man. The speech, in fact, produced a very marked impression. Some of the papers quoted it, and made it the subject of leaders.
A few days afterwards he spoke again, and again as a man of personal experience, as a Master Craftsman. His experiences were interesting and effective. And a third time, and a fourth, but always when he had something to say that ought to be said.
Lady Frances gave a dinner-party—a political dinner—at which some of the heads of the Party were present. And she invited Robert. Among her guests was old Lord Caerleon, to whom he had already been introduced. It was a large party, and Robert’s place was down below among the younger men, who were civil to him. But, of course, in the conversation it was impossible for him not to feel that he was an outsider.
After dinner, however, Lord Caerleon again talked with him apart. He talked as one who knows the game, and as one who has played it, and now looked on rather tired of it.
‘I have read your speeches, Mr. Burnikel,’ he said, much as a schoolmaster may speak of a boy’s set of verses. ‘As reported, they were fair. I am told that they produced—ah! some effect upon the House. I am told that you have a good delivery and a good voice. Is that so?’
‘It is so,’ said Robert calmly. ‘I have a good voice by nature, and a good delivery by art.’
‘Yes.’ Lord Caerleon looked just a little astonished at a young man who thus immodestly claimed these gifts. ‘A good voice is a great thing. You have begun well, Mr. Burnikel. But a good beginning in the House counts for nothing. The House is filled, to me, with the ghosts of men who in my recollection made a good beginning.’
‘I have made a good beginning, Lord Caerleon; and, with your permission, I intend not to become a ghost at all.’
‘Very good—very good indeed. But, Mr. Burnikel, how are you going to get on? Permit me—I understand, for some mysterious reasons of your own, you still wish to be considered an Independent Member. You told me so, if I remember rightly, in this house two or three weeks ago.’
‘That is so. I am returned by my constituents as an Independent Member.’
‘I don’t think it matters much what they think. But I suppose you talked the usual stuff—voting to order, no conscience, changing opinions, and the rest of it?’
‘All the rest of it,’ said Robert quietly.
‘Of course you did. Now, then, Mr. Burnikel, let us go into the question of Party for a few minutes; not the whole question of Party, on which you have read—or ought to have read—your Constitutional History, but that part of the question that affects you personally.’
‘You do me great honour.’
‘I talk to you, sir, because I think that you may possibly—I don’t know—turn out an acquisition to either party. Otherwise, of course, one cannot at my age, and with my experience, pretend to take the least interest in the average member. I take the personal side, then. You propose, I believe, to make a career in politics?’
‘I do.’
‘Lady Frances tells me—you told me so yourself, if I remember rightly—that you are extremely ambitious. I am pleased to hear it. Well, you cannot be too ambitious. Nothing does a young man so much good. It is impossible to be too ambitious. It was my own great happiness, for example, to be born with enormous ambitions, which have been gratified, yet not satiated—not satiated. Get me a chair; I think I will sit down. So; thank you. Ambition,’ he went on, ‘the desire for personal distinction, is one of the finest gifts that a boy can conceive. I always had it. You would, I dare say, if we were to compare symptoms, and if you were dissected, present the same phenomena. Therefore, you may suppose that what you were as a boy that I was too—with such differences as the accidents of birth, and perhaps position, may have caused. For your encouragement, sir, I will tell you that my rise in the House was not due to any family influence. I was the son of a country clergyman, but, like your cousin, Sir George—an excellent young man, if he possessed any ambition—the grandson of a Judge and a Peer. There was very little money in the family, but enough for me to get into the House. And I say, in my age, that my highest ambitions have been gratified, but not satiated. Believe me, sir, the ambitious man enjoys the winning of every step—one after the other. He is never satiated; he can never say “enough.”’
‘Well, sir,’ said Robert, ‘you have never had occasion to regret having embarked upon this splendid career.’
‘Certainly not. If I were to be offered the choice once again, I would choose the same career.’
‘You have led the House,’ said Robert; ‘you have been in three Cabinets; you have been First Lord of the Treasury. Well, my lord, what you desired and attained, that I have the audacity also to desire. Perhaps I shall attain it.’
‘Not if you continue in your present course. The one condition which was imposed upon me is also imposed upon you. You must rise in the customary manner by becoming a faithful servant of your party.’
‘That we will see,’ said Robert, obstinate and incredulous.
‘How, then, do you propose to climb? My dear sir, before you rises an inaccessible precipice. There are only two ladders. Would you fly?’
‘I wish to climb by doing good work.’
‘My case, too—exactly my case. I kept on saying that while I was at Oxford. It is really a very fine thing to think, though it is a very foolish—and, indeed, a boyish—thing to say. Mr. Burnikel, you ought to understand by this time that there is only one possible way of climbing, and that is, as I said, by one of the only two ladders. No other way exists, believe me, young man. If there were any other way, it would have been found out long ago.’
‘There was the case of John Bright.’
‘He had to join the Party at last, remember. John Bright was in every way exceptional; he wanted neither money, nor place, nor power, nor rank. You, I should imagine, want everything.’
Robert was silent.
‘So that’s settled. If you want to climb, enter by the usual gate, and you will find the ladder waiting for you. Let us pass on to consider the noble work by which you desire to make a mark in history. Noble work, for a politician, means great and beneficent measures. You, as an Independent Member, would never be able to pass any considerable measure—not any single measure of the least importance. Why? Because all great measures are adopted, as soon as it is found possible to pass them, by the Government. As for moving public opinion so as to make these measures possible, that is done by essayists, leader-writers, authors, poets, dramatists, and other intelligent persons, who nowadays prevent a Minister from being original in his ideas. You, as an Independent Member, would have no chance at all—not the least ghost of a chance—even of introducing a Bill.’
‘I always thought——’
‘Think so no longer. Look about you and face the facts. They are these: An Independent Member, whatever he could formerly accomplish, which wasn’t much, will never more be able to introduce or to pass any measure, good or bad; he can never become a leader in the House; he can never have the least chance of proving himself a statesman; all he can hope to do is to get the House to listen to him, and, through the House, the outside world; and believe me, sir, on the most favourable condition possible, you will never, as an Independent Member, acquire half or a quarter of the influence over your country that is enjoyed by an anonymous leader-writer on a great daily paper.’
Robert made no reply.
‘Will such a condition content you, sir? Does such a position gratify your ambitions? Why, you have just told me what they are. Pray, sir’—Lord Caerleon looked up sharply with his keen eyes under his shaggy eyebrows—‘will this content you?’
‘No; it will not.’
‘Let us go on, then. You have told me that you have been pleased, in the education of your Shadwell constituents, to speak of party allegiance as a slavery, a stifling of conscience, a suppression of manhood, and so on. You did talk like this?’
‘Certainly. It is the only way of talking.’
‘So you think. Now let us look at it in this way: There is a party which, in the main, clings to the old things, and only admits change when new and irresistible forces command change. There is another party which is always desiring change, because they think that things might look prettier, or because things would be more logical, or because things might help the people, or themselves, by being changed. In the main, every measure belongs to one or other of these parties. Is not that so?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Every measure which is brought forward by one or other of the two sides has been talked about, advocated, discussed in newspapers, in magazines, everywhere, long before. It is brought forward at last when one party has made up its mind to support it, and the other to oppose it. The House is divided into two camps, in which are the two armies. The Bill is proposed and meets its fate. All is done in order, according to the rules of the game. You understand?’
‘Of course.’
‘What would you have? A House filled with a mob of six hundred undisciplined, separate individuals, all clamouring together—every one fighting to bring forward some fad and fancy of his own? What a House would that be? What kind of legislation would you expect of such a House?’
Robert at the moment could suggest no kind of legislation.
‘Suppose you think over the matter from this point of view, Mr. Burnikel. Construct—that is, in your imagination—the House filled with Independent Members, and see how it would work. Oblige me by doing this.’
Robert bowed gravely.
‘I dare say that you have already recognised this view of the question. But there are times when the mind seems more especially open to the apprehension of plain truths. This is, perhaps, one of those occasions. The very name of Lady Frances fills one with the idea of Party.’
‘I will, at least, consider your view.’
‘Well—and now, Mr. Burnikel, I want to speak quite plainly, and, I take it, you are not a man to be offended with plain speech. Very good. You are not a rich man, I believe, nor a man of family?’
‘I have already told you that I am a boat-builder—a Master Craftsman—and my income is small.’
‘I have heard as much. Well, your birth and position should be no bar to your ambitions. You have heard that I began with much the same disadvantage. You will very soon find your way about. You are in excellent hands so long as Lady Frances takes an interest in you, and I hope that you will find, as I did, that this is the very best country in the world for a young man of ability and courage and ambition.’ He rose from the chair. ‘So. I have said nearly all I wished to say.’
‘Thank you,’ said Robert humbly. He was touched by the comparison of the man who had succeeded with himself.
‘Not quite all. Some of the people think that you may possibly be a coming man. I’m sure I don’t know.’ Lord Caerleon, who had worked himself up into some eagerness, became all at once limp and tired. ‘There are too many wrecks. I have had too many disappointments. But—I say—I don’t know. Anything may happen. I don’t think I could have made such a clever speech as yours of the other day. I don’t know. Anyhow, we are watching you. And—I don’t know—it depends entirely on your own ability and common-sense. I believe you may find friends and backers—when you give up nonsense, and are content to play the game according to the rules. But—I don’t know. Good-evening, Mr. Burnikel.’
He inclined his head with dignity. The interview was at an end.
‘I was very glad,’ said Lady Frances, after this conversation, ‘to see Lord Caerleon talking so long and so earnestly with you. It is a sign that he takes a personal interest in you. Believe me, Mr. Burnikel, it is a great honour to have been able to interest that old Parliamentary hand.’
‘I am indeed very much obliged to him for the trouble he took to convert me to his views.’
‘I will tell you a secret, as people always say when they tell a thing that everybody knows: Lord Caerleon came here this evening on purpose to meet you and have the talk with you.’
‘Did he really?’ Robert, who was not to be dazzled, blushed like a girl.
‘He did indeed. And, Mr. Burnikel, I understand from your cousin that you are a very masterful man, and that you think very much of your own opinion. Only, remember, you are young, as regards political life. You cannot possibly know as much, or anything like as much, as Lord Caerleon, who is seventy-seven; and as regards the House, you are yet only a theorist, and Lord Caerleon has an experience of fifty years. You are a very strong man, Mr. Burnikel, but strength wants experience. You must not feel shame at the outset to be guided.’
Thus skilfully did this diplomatist play upon the weakness of the strong man. The stronger the man, the more this weakness may be played upon. It is your weakling who has no such vanity.
‘Let us talk again about this subject, Mr. Burnikel. I cannot talk freely to-night. Come to-morrow afternoon—it is not my day—and we will consider the thing calmly and from your own personal point of view. Oh, I understand it perfectly; but ambition, Mr. Burnikel—ambition must use the appointed ways. We belong to our own generation; we are subject to the conditions of our time; and, enfin, you must not waste what might be—and will be—a great career, for the sake of a visionary scruple.’
Robert went away in a thoughtful mood. The observations made by the noble lord went straight home. If, by remaining an Independent Member, he obtained neither power nor place, nor even the introduction of the great, remarkable, never before imagined, measures of which, in ignorance of his powers and possibilities, he had vaguely dreamed, he might as well keep out of Parliament altogether, and go on haranguing the working men of Shadwell.
The day after the dinner Frances wrote me a letter.
‘I have just parted,’ she said, ‘with your remarkable cousin. He dined with me last night, and heard plain truths from old Lord Caerleon. He went home staggered, and he came this afternoon to consult with me. He protested vigorously, of course; his principles, his teaching, his convictions, were all against Party. As if that mattered with so young a man! He protested, however, too vigorously; the very strength of his protestation showed that he was weakening. Of course, his pride, which is colossal, and his self-confidence, which is unbounded, prevent his giving in without a struggle. But he will give in, George—he will give in—and we shall have, I believe, a recruit worth fifty of the men that the other side can show. I have never seen any reason to depart from the opinion which I formed at the very outset—that your cousin has in him the very highest possibilities.
‘The thing which makes me quite certain of his conversion is that self-interest, which in him means ambition, and pride, and desire for conquest, will be continually prodding and prompting him. It is like the dropping of water upon a stone. I am sure there can be no stronger force, and it is always in action upon every man. It is especially a characteristic of this man. Generally self-interest means money. Not so with your cousin. Dear me! if we take away self-interest, how many noble patriots and great and pious persons would be left? Well, it is for your cousin’s interest—looked at from every point of view—that he should join us; and now that he fully understands it—and understands as well that he can never get on without joining us—he swears he will never, never, never do so—standing on the point of honour—as one who, while she swore she’d ne’er consent, consented. Oh, he will come in, as soon as he can square it with his pride.
‘You see, he lived alone; he read books; he formed theories; he did not know how things were worked practically; he did not know men and women; and so he got notions in his otherwise sensible pate. He fully intended—which was a very nice thing to intend—to do “great and noble” work—what kind of work that is I cannot tell you—all by himself, which an admiring world would behold, and for which an admiring Premier would ladle out rewards. And, of course, he saw in his dreams the House of Commons looking on, not with eyes of envy, but of wonder and applause, and he heard the papers ringing wedding-bells of praise. It is the one discernible note of his out-of-the-world upbringing and his solitary self-making, that he could seriously entertain this idea, and could imagine himself mounting in this Will-o’-the-wisp fashion to the place of First Lord of the Treasury, and all kinds of sweet things. A most childish dream, and yet in its way the dream of a generous man. He who could imagine a career of this sort cannot be altogether a selfish man. The lower nature, you see, thinks of the reward first and the kind of work afterwards. It does not detract from the higher nature that a man should think of his reward after he has thought of his work. Otherwise he would be more than human. So I do not blame your cousin, but rather respect him the more. A childish dream. I told him so to-day, and I told him why. And an ignorant dream. I told him that as well. He thinks so now; but it shamed him, just for the moment, to confess that he has been all wrong. A man like Robert Burnikel cannot bear to be thought ignorant.
‘I had on the table a copy of the Morning Herald. It contained a leader against him and his last speech—quite a leader of the old stamp. I had thought the trick of writing such leading articles was gone. Every sentence perverted; every phrase misinterpreted, and made to mean something more, something less, and something different—a masterpiece of party malignity—a leading article, in fact, that cannot fail to do our friend all the good in the world.
‘I handed him the paper; he had not yet seen it. Well, you would hardly believe that a real politician could be so young and so foolish. He actually flew into a rage over it; he lost, for a moment, command of himself.
‘“My dear friend,” I said, “the thing is so exaggerated that I thought you had written it yourself.”
‘“Written it myself—myself?”
‘“Written it yourself. Don’t you understand, Mr. Burnikel, that what the young politician wants is plenty of abuse from the other side. There is a story of a certain aged statesman who very kindly advanced a young man of the opposite bench, in whom he took a fatherly interest, by personally abusing him for a whole twelve months. In five years that young man was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now, if we could only find some good man on the other side to abuse you. It is difficult, but it might be done.”
‘“Rise through abuse?”
‘“Certainly; I will tell you why: First, because it keeps people talking of you, thinking of you, and giving you increased importance in the Party; and next, because the abuse is always grossly exaggerated, and people compare it with your printed utterances. If you were rich enough, you should pay a journalist so much a year to abuse you twice a week.”
‘He threw down the paper. “Mean artifice!” he cried. “Does this also belong to Party?”
‘“You must not take things so seriously, Mr. Burnikel,” I said. “It is true that the abuse will in the long-run end in strengthening your position. As for hiring a man, you ought to understand by this time what we mean in earnest, and what in the language which we use to each other.”
‘“Oh,” he cried, “I am an awkward, stupid log!”
‘“Never mind, Mr. Burnikel. You are half a nautical person; you shall be the ship’s log, which is very good reading, I believe. Now, let us say no more about this article. You must learn to accept these things philosophically. They are all in the day’s work. A man who wants to stand on a pinnacle must expect to have dead cats thrown at him. Force of habit, you see, makes the journalist who used to throw dead cats and addled eggs at the man in the pillory now throw them at the man on the pinnacle. They don’t hurt—that is, they don’t hurt the man who belongs to the Party—they do him good; they only hurt and defile the man who has no Party to protect him, and no friends.”
‘Eleven o’clock.
‘I have just opened a note from him. He has joined us. Yes; the Independent Member has vanished.
‘“Dear Lady Frances,” he says, “I have thought over what you said this afternoon; you have convinced and converted me. I am now quite sure that the only way of working the machinery of Government is by means of Party. You have shown me that I have been quite wrong. I shall join your Party as one of its private soldiers, and I shall set myself to learn the obedience and discipline of which you spoke.”
‘There, George; I have converted him. Now, it was not by my arguments at all, but by those of Lord Caerleon, that he was converted. There were all the signs of conviction on his face last night after that conversation. I thought, indeed, of inviting him to sit down on the stool of repentance before the world. But do you think he is capable of confessing himself converted by a man? Never. By a woman, perhaps, although he is too much absorbed in his own ambition to think much about women—never by a man. I am contented, however, with my share of the work. You made your cousin a gentleman, my dear George. You gave him manners. At first, I plainly see, he was probably little better than a self-satisfied prig of the boorish sort—a lower middle-class, prejudiced, book-learned, ignorant prig—yet with wonderful capacities. I shall make him a model statesman of the modern kind. What else can we, between us, do for him?’
‘Well, my dear Frances,’ I said to myself, folding up the letter, ‘the next thing you might do for him—if you would, just to oblige me—is to make him a model husband, and so get him out of my way.’