About three miles from Oxford a thickly-wooded village lies on the
side of a steep, long hill or chine, looking over the Berkshire woods,
and commanding a view of the many-turreted city itself. Over its broad
summit once stretched a chestnut forest; and now it is covered with the
roots of trees, or furze, or soft turf. The red sand which lies
underneath contrasts with the green, and adds to its brilliancy; it
drinks in, too, the rain greedily, so that the wide common is nearly
always fit for walking; and the air, unlike the heavy atmosphere of the
University beneath it, is fresh and bracing. The gorse was still in
bloom, in the latter end of the month of June, when Reding and
Sheffield took up their abode in a small cottage at the upper end of
this village—so hid with trees and girt in with meadows that for the
stranger it was hard to find—there to pass their third and last Long
Vacation before going into the schools.
A year and a half had passed since Charles's great affliction, and
the time had not been unprofitably spent either by himself or his
friend. Both had read very regularly, and Sheffield had gained the
Latin verse into the bargain. Charles had put all religious
perplexities aside; that is, he knew of course many more persons of all
parties than he did before, and became better acquainted with their
tenets and their characters, but he did not dwell upon anything which
he met with, nor attempt to determine the merits or solve the
difficulties of this or that question. He took things as they came;
and, while he gave his mind to his books, he thankfully availed himself
of the religious privileges which the College system afforded him.
Nearly a year still remained before his examination; and, as Mrs.
Reding had not as yet fully arranged her plans, but was still, with her
daughters, passing from friend to friend, he had listened to
Sheffield's proposal to take a tutor for the Vacation, and to find a
site for their studies in the neighbourhood of Oxford. There was every
prospect of their both obtaining the highest honours which the schools
award: they both were good scholars, and clever men; they had read
regularly, and had had the advantage of able lectures.
The side of the hill forms a large, sweeping hollow or theatre just
on one side of the village of Horsley. The two extreme points may be
half a mile across; but the distance is increased to one who follows
the path which winds through the furze and fern along the ridge. Their
tutor had been unable to find lodgings in the village; and, while the
two young men lived on one extremity of the sweep we have been
describing, Mr. Carlton, who was not above three years older than they,
had planted himself at a farmhouse upon the other. Besides, the
farmhouse suited him better, as being nearer to a hamlet which he was
serving during the Vacation.
“I don't think you like Carlton as well as I do,” said Reding to
Sheffield, as they lay on the green sward with some lighter classic in
their hands, waiting for dinner, and watching their friend as he
approached them from his lodgings. “He is to me so taking a man; so
equable, so gentle, so considerate—he brings people together, and
fills them with confidence in himself and friendly feeling towards each
other, more than any person I know.”
“You are wrong,” said Sheffield, “if you think I don't value him
extremely, and love him too; it's impossible not to love him. But he's
not the person quite to get influence over me.”
“He's too much of an Anglican for you,” said Reding.
“Not at all,” said Sheffield, “except indirectly. My quarrel with
him is, that he has many original thoughts, and holds many profound
truths in detail, but is quite unable to see how they lie to each
other, and equally unable to draw consequences. He never sees a truth
until he touches it; he is ever groping and feeling, and, as in
hide-and-seek, continually burns without discovering. I know there are
ten thousand persons who cannot see an inch before their nose, and who
can comfortably digest contradictions; but Carlton is really a clever
man; he is no common thinker; this makes it so provoking. When I write
an essay for him—I know I write obscurely, and often do not bring out
the sequence of my ideas in due order, but, so it is—he is sure to cut
out the very thought or statement on which I especially pride myself,
on which the whole argument rests, which binds every part together; and
he coolly tells me that it is extravagant or far-fetched—not seeing
that by leaving it out he has made nonsense of the rest. He is a man to
rob an arch of its keystone, and then quietly to build his house upon
it.”
“Ah, your old failing again,” said Reding; “a craving after views.
Now, what I like in Carlton, is that repose of his;—always saying
enough, never too much; never boring you, never taxing you; always
practical, never in the clouds. Save me from a viewy man; I could not
live with him for a week, present company always excepted.”
“Now, considering how hard I have read, and how little I have talked
this year past, that is hard on me,” said Sheffield. “Did not I go to
be one of old Thruston's sixteen pupils, last Long? He gave us capital
feeds, smoked with us, and coached us in Ethics and Agamemnon. He knows
his books by heart, can repeat his plays backwards, and weighs out his
Aristotle by grains and pennyweights; but, for generalizations, ideas,
poetry, oh, it was desolation—it was a darkness which could be felt!”
“And you stayed there just six weeks out of four months, Sheffield,”
answered Reding.
Carlton had now joined them, and, after introductory greetings on
both sides, he too threw himself upon the turf. Sheffield said: “Reding
and I were disputing just now whether Nicias was a party man.”
“Of course you first defined your terms,” said Carlton.
“Well,” said Sheffield, “I mean by a party man, one who not only
belongs to a party, but who has the animus of party. Nicias did
not make a party, he found one made. He found himself at the head of
it; he was no more a party man than a prince who was born the head of
his state.”
“I should agree with you,” said Carlton; “but still I should like to
know what a party is, and what a party man.”
“A party,” said Sheffield, “is merely an extra-constitutional or
extra-legal body.”
“Party action,” said Charles, “is the exertion of influence instead
of law.”
“But supposing, Reding, there is no law existing in the quarter
where influence exerts itself?” asked Carlton.
Charles had to explain: “Certainly,” he said, “the State did not
legislate for all possible contingencies.”
“For instance,” continued Carlton, “a prime minister, I have
understood, is not acknowledged in the Constitution; he exerts
influence beyond the law, but not, in consequence, against any existing
law; and it would be absurd to talk of him as a party man.”
“Parliamentary parties, too, are recognised among us,” said
Sheffield, “though extra-constitutional. We call them parties; but who
would call the Duke of Devonshire or Lord John Russell, in a bad sense,
a party man?”
“It seems to me,” said Carlton, “that the formation of a party is
merely a recurrence to the original mode of forming into society. You
recollect Deioces; he formed a party. He gained influence; he laid the
foundation of social order.”
“Law certainly begins in influence,” said Reding, “for it
presupposes a lawgiver; afterwards it supersedes influence; from that
time the exertion of influence is a sign of party.”
“Too broadly said, as you yourself just now allowed,” said Carlton:
“you should say that law begins to supersede influence, and that
in proportion as it supersedes it, does the exertion of influence
involve party action. For instance, has not the Crown an immense
personal influence? we talk of the Court party; yet it does not
interfere with law, it is intended to conciliate the people to the
law.”
“But it is recognized by law and constitution,” said Charles, “as
was the Dictatorship.”
“Well, then, take the influence of the clergy,” answered Carlton;
“we make much of that influence as a principle supplemental to the law,
and as a support to the law, yet not created or defined by the law. The
law does not recognize what some one calls truly a 'resident gentleman'
in every parish. Influence, then, instead of law is not necessarily the
action of party.”
“So again, national character is an influence distinct from the
law,” said Sheffield, “according to the line, 'Quid leges sine
moribus?'”
“Law,” said Carlton, “is but gradually formed and extended. Well,
then, so far as there is no law, there is the reign of influence; there
is party without of necessity party action. This is the
justification of Whigs and Tories at the present day; to supply, as
Aristotle says on another subject, the defects of the law. Charles I.
exerted a regal, Walpole a ministerial influence; but influence, not
law, was the operating principle in both cases. The object or the means
might be wrong, but the process could not be called party action.”
“You would justify, then,” said Charles, “the associations or
confraternities which existed, for instance, in Athens; not, that is,
if they 'took the law into their own hands,' as the phrase goes, but if
there was no law to take, or if there was no constituted authority to
take it of right. It was a recurrence to the precedent of Deioces.”
“Manzoni gives a striking instance of this in the beginning of his
Promessi Sposi,” said Sheffield, “when he describes that
protection, which law ought to give to the weak, as being in the
sixteenth century sought and found almost exclusively in factions or
companies. I don't recollect particulars, but he describes the clergy
as busy in extending their immunities, the nobility their privileges,
the army their exemptions, the trades and artisans their guilds. Even
the lawyers formed a union, and medical men a corporation.”
“Thus constitutions are gradually moulded and perfected,” said
Carlton, “by extra-constitutional bodies, either coming under the
protection of law, or else being superseded by the law's providing for
their objects. In the middle ages the Church was a vast
extra-constitutional body. The German and Anglo-Norman sovereigns
sought to bring its operation under the law; modern parliaments
have superseded its operation by law. Then the State wished to
gain the right of investitures; now the State marries, registers,
manages the poor, exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction instead of the
Church.”
“This will make ostracism parallel to the Reformation or the
Revolution,” said Sheffield; “there is a battle of influence against
influence, and one gets rid of the other; law or constitution does not
come into question, but the will of the people or of the court ejects,
whether the too-gifted individual, or the monarch, or the religion.
What was not under the law could not be dealt with, had no claim to be
dealt with, by the law.”
“A thought has sometimes struck me,” said Reding, “which falls in
with what you have been saying. In the last half-century there has been
a gradual formation of the popular party in the State, which now tends
to be acknowledged as constitutional, or is already so acknowledged. My
father never could endure newspapers—I mean the system of newspapers;
he said it was a new power in the State. I am sure I am not defending
what he was thinking of, the many bad proceedings, the wretched
principles, the arrogance and tyranny of newspaper writers, but I am
trying the subject by the test of your theory. The great body of the
people are very imperfectly represented in parliament; the Commons are
not their voice, but the voice of certain great interests. Consequently
the press comes in—to do that which the constitution does not do—to
form the people into a vast mutual-protection association. And this is
done by the same right that Deioces had to collect people about him; it
does not interfere with the existing territory of the law, but builds
where the constitution has not made provision. It tends, then,
ultimately to be recognised by the constitution.”
“There is another remarkable phenomenon of a similar kind now in
process of development,” said Carlton, “and that is, the influence of
agitation. I really am not politician enough to talk of it as good or
bad; one's natural instinct is against it; but it may be necessary.
However, agitation is getting to be recognised as the legitimate
instrument by which the masses make their desires known, and secure the
accomplishment of them. Just as a bill passes in parliament, after
certain readings, discussions, speeches, votings, and the like, so the
process by which an act of the popular will becomes law is a long
agitation, issuing in petitions, previous to and concurrent with the
parliamentary process. The first instance of this was about fifty or
sixty years ago, when ... Hallo!” he cried, “who is this cantering up
to us?”
“I declare it is old Vincent,” said Sheffield.
“He is to come to dine,” said Charles, “just in time.”
“How are you, Carlton?” cried Vincent. “How d'ye do, Mr. Sheffield?
Mr. Reding, how d'ye do? acting up to your name, I suppose, for you
were ever a reading man. For myself,” he continued, “I am just now an
eating man, and am come to dine with you, if you will let me. Have you
a place for my horse?”
There was a farmer near who could lend a stable; so the horse was
led off by Charles; and the rider, without any delay—for the hour did
not admit it—entered the cottage to make his brief preparation for
dinner.