“I beg your pardon for coming too early,” said Finn.
“Not a minute too early. Seven is seven, and it is I who am too late. But, Lord bless you, you don’t think I’m ashamed of being found in the act of decanting3 my own wine! I remember Lord Palmerston saying before some committee about salaries, five or six years ago now, I daresay, that it wouldn’t do for an English Minister to have his hall door opened by a maidservant. Now, I’m an English Minister, and I’ve got nobody but a maidservant to open my hall door, and I’m obliged to look after my own wine. I wonder whether it’s improper4? I shouldn’t like to be the means of injuring the British Constitution.”
“Perhaps if you resign soon, and if nobody follows your example, grave evil results may be avoided.”
“I sincerely hope so, for I do love the British Constitution; and I love also the respect in which members of the English Cabinet are held. Now Turnbull, who will be here in a moment, hates it all; but he is a rich man, and has more powdered footmen hanging about his house than ever Lord Palmerston had himself.”
“He is still in business.”
“Oh yes — and makes his thirty thousand a year. Here he is. How are you, Turnbull? We were talking about my maidservant. I hope she opened the door for you properly.”
“Certainly — as far as I perceived,” said Mr Turnbull, who was better at a speech than a joke. “A very respectable young woman I should say.”
“There is not one more so in all London,” said Mr Monk; “but Finn seems to think that I ought to have a man in livery.”
“It is a matter of perfect indifference5 to me,” said Mr Turnbull. “I am one of those who never think of such things.”
“Nor I either,” said Mr Monk. Then the laird of Loughlinter was announced, and they all went down to dinner.
Mr Turnbull was a good-looking robust6 man about sixty, with long grey hair and a red complexion7, with hard eyes, a well-cut nose, and full lips. He was nearly six feet high, stood quite upright, and always wore a black swallow-tail coat, black trousers, and a black silk waistcoat. In the House, at least, he was always so dressed, and at dinner tables. What difference there might be in his costume when at home at Staleybridge few of those who saw him in London had the means of knowing. There was nothing in his face to indicate special talent. No one looking at him would take him to be a fool; but there was none of the fire of genius in his eye, nor was there in the lines of his mouth any of that play of thought or fancy which is generally to be found in the faces of men and women who have made themselves great. Mr Turnbull had certainly made himself great, and could hardly have done so without force of intellect. He was one of the most popular, if not the most popular politician in the country. Poor men believed in him, thinking that he was their most honest public friend; and men who were not poor believed in his power, thinking that his counsels must surely prevail. He had obtained the ear of the House and the favour of the reporters, and opened his voice at no public dinner, on no public platform, without a conviction that the words spoken by him would be read by thousands. The first necessity for good speaking is a large audience; and of this advantage Mr Turnbull had made himself sure. And yet it could hardly be said that he was a great orator8. He was gifted with a powerful voice, with strong, and I may, perhaps, call them broad convictions, with perfect self-reliance, with almost unlimited9 powers of endurance, with hot ambition, with no keen scruples10, and with a moral skin of great thickness. Nothing said against him pained him, no attacks wounded him, no raillery touched him in the least. There was not a sore spot about him, and probably his first thoughts on waking every morning told him that he, at least, was totus teres atque rotundus. He was, of course, a thorough Radical11 — and so was Mr Monk. But Mr Monk’s first waking thoughts were probably exactly the reverse of those of his friend. Mr Monk was a much hotter man in debate than Mr Turnbull — but Mr Monk was ever doubting of himself, and never doubted of himself so much as when he had been most violent, and also most effective, in debate. When Mr Monk jeered12 at himself for being a Cabinet Minister and keeping no attendant grander than a parlour-maid, there was a substratum of self-doubt under the joke.
Mr Turnbull was certainly a great Radical, and as such enjoyed a great reputation. I do not think that high office in the State had ever been offered to him; but things had been said which justified13 him, or seemed to himself to justify14 him, in declaring that in no possible circumstances would he serve the Crown. “I serve the people,” he had said, “and much as I respect the servants of the Crown, I think that my own office is the higher.” He had been greatly called to task for this speech; and Mr Mildmay, the present Premier15, had asked him whether he did not recognise the so-called servants of the Crown as the most hard-worked and truest servants of the people. The House and the press had supported Mr Mildmay, but to all that Mr Turnbull was quite indifferent; and when an assertion made by him before three or four thousand persons at Manchester, to the effect that he — he specially16 — was the friend and servant of the people, was received with acclamation, he felt quite satisfied that he had gained his point. Progressive reform in the franchise17, of which manhood suffrage18 should be the acknowledged and not far distant end, equal electoral districts, ballot19, tenant20 right for England as well as Ireland, reduction of the standing21 army till there should be no standing army to reduce, utter disregard of all political movements in Europe, an almost idolatrous admiration22 for all political movements in America, free trade in everything except malt, and an absolute extinction23 of a State Church — these were among the principal articles in Mr Turnbull’s political catalogue. And I think that when once he had learned the art of arranging his words as he stood upon his legs, and had so mastered his voice as to have obtained the ear of the House, the work of his life was not difficult. Having nothing to construct, he could always deal with generalities. Being free from responsibility, he was not called upon either to study details or to master even great facts. It was his business to inveigh24 against existing evils, and perhaps there is no easier business when once the privilege of an audience has been attained25. It was his work to cut down forest-trees, and he had nothing to do with the subsequent cultivation26 of the land. Mr Monk had once told Phineas Finn how great were the charms of that inaccuracy which was permitted to the opposition27. Mr Turnbull no doubt enjoyed these charms to the full, though he would sooner have put a padlock on his mouth for a month than have owned as much. Upon the whole, Mr Turnbull was no doubt right in resolving that he would not take office, though some reticence28 on that subject might have been more becoming to him.
The conversation at dinner, though it was altogether on political subjects, had in it nothing of special interest as long as the girl was there to change the plates; but when she was gone, and the door was closed, it gradually opened out, and there came on to be a pleasant sparring match between the two great Radicals29 — the Radical who had joined himself to the governing powers, and the Radical who stood aloof30. Mr Kennedy barely said a word now and then, and Phineas was almost as silent as Mr Kennedy. He had come there to hear some such discussion, and was quite willing to listen while guns of such great calibre were being fired off for his amusement.
“I think Mr Mildmay is making a great step forward,” said Mr Turnbull.
“I think he is,” said Mr Monk.
“I did not believe that he would ever live to go so far. It will hardly suffice even for this year; but still coming from him, it is a great deal. It only shows how far a man may be made to go, if only the proper force be applied31. After all, it matters very little who are the Ministers.”
“That is what I have always declared,” said Mr Monk.
“Very little indeed. We don’t mind whether it be Lord de Terrier, or Mr Mildmay, or Mr Gresham, or you yourself, if you choose to get yourself made First Lord of the Treasury32.”
“I have no such ambition, Turnbull.”
“I should have thought you had. If I went in for that kind of thing myself, I should like to go to the top of the ladder. I should feel that if I could do any good at all by becoming a Minister, I could only do it by becoming first Minister.”
“You wouldn’t doubt your own fitness for such a position?”
“I doubt my fitness for the position of any Minister,” said Mr Turnbull.
“You mean that on other grounds,” said Mr Kennedy.
“I mean it on every ground,” said Mr Turnbull, rising on his legs and standing with his back to the fire. “Of course I am not fit to have diplomatic intercourse33 with men who would come to me simply with the desire of deceiving me. Of course I am unfit to deal with members of Parliament who would flock around me because they wanted places. Of course I am unfit to answer every man’s question so as to give no information to any one.”
“Could you not answer them so as to give information?” said Mr Kennedy.
But Mr Turnbull was so intent on his speech that it may be doubted whether he heard this interruption. He took no notice of it as he went on. “Of course I am unfit to maintain the proprieties34 of a seeming confidence between a Crown all-powerless and a people all-powerful. No man recognises his own unfitness for such work more clearly than I do, Mr Monk. But if I took in hand such work at all, I should like to be the leader, and not the led. Tell us fairly, now, what are your convictions worth in Mr Mildmay’s Cabinet?”
“That is a question which a man may hardly answer himself,” said Mr Monk.
“It is a question which a man should at least answer for himself before he consents to sit there,” said Mr Turnbull, in a tone of voice which was almost angry.
“And what reason have you for supposing that I have omitted that duty?” said Mr Monk.
“Simply this — that I cannot reconcile your known opinions with the practices of your colleagues.”
“I will not tell you what my convictions may be worth in Mr Mildmay’s Cabinet. I will not take upon myself to say that they are worth the chair on which I sit when I am there. But I will tell you what my aspirations35 were when I consented to fill that chair, and you shall judge of their worth. I thought that they might possibly leaven36 the batch37 of bread which we have to bake — giving to the whole batch more of the flavour of reform than it would have possessed38 had I absented myself. I thought that when I was asked to join Mr Mildmay and Mr Gresham, the very fact of that request indicated liberal progress, and that if I refused the request I should be declining to assist in good work.”
“You could have supported them, if anything were proposed worthy39 of support,” said Mr Turnbull.
“Yes; but I could not have been so effective in taking care that some measure be proposed worthy of support as I may possibly be now. I thought a good deal about it, and I believe that my decision was right.”
“I am sure you were right,” said Mr Kennedy.
“There can be no juster object of ambition than a seat in the Cabinet,” said Phineas.
“Sir, I must dispute that,” said Mr Turnbull, turning round upon our hero. “I regard the position of our high Ministers as most respectable.”
“Thank you for so much,” said Mr Monk. But the orator went on again, regardless of the interruption:
“The position of gentlemen in inferior offices — of gentlemen who attend rather to the nods and winks40 of their superiors in Downing Street than to the interest of their constituents41 — I do not regard as being highly respectable.”
“A man cannot begin at the top,” said Phineas.
“Our friend Mr Monk has begun at what you are pleased to call the top,” said Mr Turnbull. “But I will not profess42 to think that even he has raised himself by going into office. To be an independent representative of a really popular commercial constituency is, in my estimation, the highest object of an Englishman’s ambition.”
“But why commercial, Mr Turnbull?” said Mr Kennedy.
“Because the commercial constituencies really do elect their own members in accordance with their own judgments43, whereas the counties and the small towns are coerced44 either by individuals or by a combination of aristocratic influences.”
“And yet,” said Mr Kennedy, there are not half a dozen Conservatives returned by all the counties in Scotland.”
“Scotland is very much to be honoured,” said Mr Turnbull.
Mr Kennedy was the first to take his departure, and Mr Turnbull followed him very quickly. Phineas got up to go at the same time, but stayed at his host’s request, and sat for a while smoking a cigar.
“Turnbull is a wonderful man,” said Mr Monk.
“Does he not domineer too much?”
“His fault is not arrogance45, so much as ignorance that there is, or should be, a difference between public and private life. In the House of Commons a man in Mr Turnbull’s position must speak with dictatorial46 assurance. He is always addressing, not the House only, but the country at large, and the country will not believe in him unless he believe in himself. But he forgets that he is not always addressing the country at large. I wonder what sort of a time Mrs Turnbull and the little Turnbulls have of it?”
Phineas, as he went home, made up his mind that Mrs Turnbull and the little Turnbulls must probably have a bad time of it.
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1
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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2
brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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3
decanting
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| n.滗析（手续）v.将（酒等）自瓶中倒入另一容器( decant的现在分词 ) | |
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4
improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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5
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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6
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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7
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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8
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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9
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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10
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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11
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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12
jeered
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| v.嘲笑( jeer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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15
premier
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| adj.首要的；n.总理，首相 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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19
ballot
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| n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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21
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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inveigh
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| v.痛骂 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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29
radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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30
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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proprieties
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| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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leaven
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| v.使发酵；n.酵母；影响 | |
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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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40
winks
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| v.使眼色( wink的第三人称单数 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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41
constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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42
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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43
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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44
coerced
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| v.迫使做( coerce的过去式和过去分词 )；强迫；（以武力、惩罚、威胁等手段）控制；支配 | |
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45
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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46
dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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