Laurence Oliphant

“ Again, if Lady Broadhem thinks I am really going to do what my conscience urges, and sacrifice myself for Grandon, then, poor girl, she will be sacrificed to Chundango.
Nothing but misery will come out of that double event: if I do what is right, it will bring misery; if I do what is wrong, it will bring misery too,—that is one consolation—it makes the straight and narrow path easier. The only difficulty is, I can't find it—and standing here with my hand on her chair, my head swimming, and Lady Ursula looking anxiously up at me, I am not likely to find it. ”

“ We in our country consider that your Ecclesiastical Court is a most remarkable institution for a Christian land. Why sir, law is strictly prohibited in a certain place; and it seems to me that you might as well talk of a good devil as a religious court. If it is wrong for a layman to go to law, it must be wrong for a bishop. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; that proverb holds good in your country as well as mine, don't it?"
"The Ecclesiastical Court is a court of discipline and doctrine rather than of law," said Dickiefield. ”

“ Thanks, Broadhem, for having put in rather too epigrammatic a form, perhaps, to please those who believe it, the most diabolical sophism that was ever invented to beguile a Church—the doctrine that men can be saved by opinion without practice: that a man's practice may be bad, and yet because his faith is good his salvation is sure—that he can, by such a miserable philosophy as would disgrace the justice of the earth, escape the just sentence to be passed upon all his deeds. The results of so fatal a dogma must be a Church that tends to atheism, and that loves corruption. ”

“ You are not quite up to it, Lord Frank. Why don't you write a novel?"
"My imagination is too vivid, and would run away with me."
"Nothing else would," she said, laughing; "but if you don't like fiction, you can always fall back upon fact; be the hero of your own romance, publish your diary, and call it 'The Experiences of a Product of the Highest State of Civilisation.' Thus you will be able to write about civilisation and yourself at the same time, which I am sure you will like. I want some tea, please; do you know you are rather dull to-night?" ”

“ Lady Broadhem, Chundango, Grandon, and Ursula—backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, like some horrid word that I had to spell in a game of letters, and could never bring right. Love, friendship, hate, pity, admiration, treachery—more words to spell, ever combining wrongly, and never letting me rest, till I thought something must crack under the strain. ”

“ That is why men are unconscious of His force within them. It is a terrible thing for a nation to lose its God. History shows that all nations wherein the religious inspiration has gone down beneath formalism, infidelity, a warlike spirit, an enslaving spirit, or a trading spirit, have burst like so many gilded bubbles, most enlarged and gorgeous at the moment of their close. Think of the old Scripture, 'The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.'"
"Who is that?" whispered Broadhem. ”

“ There is not a man or woman of the present day who is not in chains, either to the religious world or the other, or to family or friends, and always to self. Now, if we could get rid of the bonds of self first, we could snap the other fetters like packthread. What a grand sensation it would be to expand one's chest and take in a full, free, pure breath, and uplift the hands heavenward that have been pinioned to our sides, and feel the feeble knees strong and capable of enabling us to climb upwards! ”

“ Is it not enough to love a woman to distraction, and be obliged by every principle of honour to conceal it from her, without her pressing upon you her sympathy, and inviting your confidence? and the very tenderness which had prompted her speech rose up against her in judgment in my mind. So ready with her friendship, too! Should I tell her bitterly that she was the only being in the whole world whose friendship could aggravate my misery? ”

“ While we are not to judge others, we are also told that by their fruits we shall know them. It does not require a profound knowledge of the dogmas of a creed to perceive the effect it has upon those who profess it. Fortunately I have thought for myself, and have come at last firmly to believe in the religion, but I should never have done so had I continued to judge of it by its professors."
"Then you think the form in which Christianity is professed and practised prejudices the cause of true religion?" said Lady Ursula. ”

“ Do you think it is the fault of the religion that you don't make converts, or the fault of the system under which it is propagated? If you gave up 'the enticing words of man's wisdom,' and tried a little of 'the demonstration of the spirit and of power,' don't you think the result would be different? If you are only illumined by 'a dim religious light' yourselves, how do you expect to dissipate the gross darkness of paganism? You have only got an imitation blaze that warms nobody at home, and you wonder when you take it abroad that it leaves everybody as cold and as dead as it finds them. ”

“ If I could only pour myself out in a torrent of passionate expression, and wind up with a paroxysm of tears, she was welcome to treat me as a raving lunatic, but I should be much less likely to become one. But how, knowing what I did, could I face Grandon afterwards? Before that fatal conversation with Lady Broadhem, I should have had the satisfaction of hearing my fate from Lady Ursula herself, and I know that she would have treated me so tenderly that rejection would have been a thousand times preferable to this. ”

“ We are all bad, and I am far worse than any of you; but still I may show how bad the best of us are. By living in a fool's paradise here, we shall not qualify ourselves for the other one to come. Depend upon it, we are all a great deal too comfortable to be safe.
"Lord Frank," said Lady Broadhem while Joseph was emptying the vase and pocketing the contents, and the rest of the world was beginning to circulate, "had I known that your object in coming here this evening was to insult my guests, I certainly should not have asked you." ”

“ As I know your imitative faculties, dear middle classes, I can conscientiously assure you that you may take 'Piccadilly' as a guide upon which to frame your own society. Take the most successful costermonger of the neighbourhood and erect him into a Bodwinkle, and fall down upon your knees before the most opulent pawnbroker of your parish; and you will feel that you are only performing, on a humble scale, the same act of worship as those above you. ”

“ The tinge which had not left Lady Broadhem's cheek deepened as she answered me, "Frank, it was on no hasty impulse that I telegraphed for you. I do not feel bound to enter into all the details of my private affairs, but I do feel that if there is one man in the world upon whom, at such a crisis, I have a right to rely, it is he to whom I have promised my daughter, and who professes to be devotedly attached to her." ”

“ The crisis was exciting me, for Ursula was at stake, and it was just possible my conditions might be refused; but I felt the magnetism of my will concentrating itself in my eyes as if they were burning-glasses. It seemed to dash itself upon the reefs and barriers of Lady Broadhem's rocky nature; the inner forces of our organisms were engaged in a decisive struggle for the mastery ”

“ We have become so steeped in the insane delusion, now many centuries old, that we are a Christian nation, that I anticipate with dread the reaction which will take place when men awaken to the true character of the religious quackery with which they have been duped, and, overlooking in their frenzy the distinction which exists between ancient and modern Christianity, will repudiate the former with horror, which, after all, does not deserve to be condemned, for it has never yet been tried as a political system in any country. Individuals only profess to be theoretically governed by it. ”

“ I am equally struck with this traditional practice of the bores and the wits of society, to write at length the records of their daily life, bottle them carefully up in a series of MS. volumes, and leave them to their grandchildren to publish, and to posterity to criticise. Now it has always appeared to me that the whole fun of writing was to watch the immediate effect produced by one's own literary genius. If, in addition to this, it is possible to interest the public in the current events of one's life, what nobler object of ambition could a man propose to himself? ”

“ I know that whatever you do is out of love for us; but indeed we don't want to be rich. Broadhem has no expensive tastes, and I would only be too glad to get away from London. Let us let the house, and take a little cottage somewhere in the country,—we shall be so much happier;" and Lady Ursula nestled herself on her mother's cheek, little dreaming that she had nearly had Chundango for a father-in-law, and evidently much relieved at finding that this dreadful intelligence, for which I was preparing her, was not some horrid crime, but only another money affair. ”

“ My dear Christian friends, in the face of the living contradiction which we all present in our conduct to the religion we profess, our missionaries can only convince the heathen of the truth of Christianity by living the life upon which that religion is based, by means of which it can alone be powerful, and which is only now not lived by Christians, because, as was prophesied, there is no 'faith on the earth.' I have spoken to you faithfully, even harshly, but, believe me, I have done so in a spirit of love. ”

“ Is there one of them, I wonder, that suspects he is an idiot? If you find out, Broadhem, that you are not one of them, they will call you an idiot—be prepared for that. The life of a sound and sane man in such company cannot be pleasant. Every act of it must be an enigma to those around him. If he is afraid of them, they will turn and rend him; if he is fearless, they will hate him, because 'he testifies of the evil.' His life will be a martyrdom, but his spirit will be free, his senses new-born ”

“ Still more painfully conscious am I of the fact that I am open to the charge of causing a fatal split in that Liberal party to which I have the honour to belong. Gentlemen, I regret to say that in some instances the members of that party have not been true to the principles which they profess, and have issued addresses almost identical in the terms they employ and in the measures they advocate with those of the Liberal Conservative party. It is no satisfaction to me to be told that there are as many false Conservatives as there are false Liberals. ”

“ A glass door opened from a recess in the drawing-room upon the terrace on which I was walking, and in it, on my former visits, I had been in the daily habit of writing my letters. It was a snug retreat, with a fire all to itself, a charming view, and a portière which separated it or not from the drawing-room, according to the wish of the occupant. The first question I had to consider when I put the writing materials before me was, whether I ought to begin, "Dear Lady Ursula," or, "My dear Lady Ursula." ”

“ I followed Lady Broadhem mechanically towards the dining-room, but instead of entering it went up-stairs like one in a dream, and ordered my servant to make arrangements for my immediate departure. I pulled an arm-chair near my bedroom fire, and gazed hopelessly into it.
People call me odd. I wonder really whether the conflicts of which my brain is the occasional arena are fiercer than those of others. I wonder whether other people's thoughts are as like clouds as mine are—sometimes, when it is stormy, grouping themselves in wild fantastic forms ”

“ Gentlemen,—In announcing my intention not to solicit your suffrages at the approaching general election, I feel that it is due to you that I should state the reason why I do not again seek the high honour which you have upon two previous occasions conferred upon me, of representing you in Parliament. The prosperity of the country is now so great that I feel it has no further need of my services. In default of any great question of national importance, the rival political parties are reduced to the lamentable predicament of having nothing to fight for except office. ”

“ With the sense of perfect liberty we should lose the sense of fear, no man could make us ashamed, and the waves of public opinion would dash themselves in vain against the rock upon which we should then be established. The nations of the earth are beating the air for freedom, and inventing breech-loaders wherewith to conquer it, and they know not that the battlefield is self, and the weapons for the fight not of fleshly make. Have you ever been in an asylum for idiots, Broadhem? ”

“ Do you ever tell the heads of departments that they are responsible for the morale which pervades the special services over which they preside? that the tone of honour, the amount of zeal and of disinterestedness which subordinates display must depend in a great measure upon the example set them by their chief? that you can no more expect an orchestra to play in tune with a leader devoid of a soul for music, than a department to work well without the soul of honour at its head? ”

“ I seemed groping for light and strength, and mechanically put out my hand; the soft touch of one placed gently in it thrilled through my nerves with an indescribable current, and instantaneously the horrid feeling left me, and I emerged from the momentary torpor into which I had fallen. I don't think Ursula remarked it, for she said, and her eyes were now overflowing, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, "Lord Frank, I have discovered your real secret; it is no longer possible for you to conceal the noble motives which have actuated you under your pretended——"
"Hush!" ”

“ I do not for a moment wish to reflect upon those honest individuals who devote their whole lives to the acquisition of money and nothing else. Had one of my own ancestors not done so, I should not now be the millionaire I am, and able to write thus of the pursuit of wealth. But let no man tell me that the supreme indifference to it which I entertain, does not place me upon a higher platform than a gold-hunter can possibly aspire to. When, therefore, I looked forward to an interview with the Honourable Spiffington Goldtip, I felt that I incurred a very serious responsibility. ”

“ Why did Duchesses struggle to be asked to Bodwinkle's? I almost think a new phase of snobbism is cropping out, and the rivalry will be to try, not who can rise highest, but who can sink lowest, in the social scale. The fashionable world is so blasé of itself that it has positively become tired of worshipping wealth, unless its owners possess the charm of extreme vulgarity. Its taste has become so vitiated by being unnaturally excited and pandered to, that we shall have to invent some new object of ambition. ”

“ I always get at Harris's, the apothecary in St James's Street, when my fit of nervous exhaustion come on, but there seemed rather more of the spirituous ingredient in it than usual. The life-stream began to tingle back through all my fibres—my miseries took grotesque forms. "Ha! ha! Lady Broadhem! the means you take to keep up your courage, which you so delicately alluded to just now, have come in most opportunely. What a fool I was to make mountains out of molehills, and call the little ills of life miseries! ”

“ It is not true, because young men behave heartlessly, that you must flirt "in self-defence," as you call it. When a warfare of this kind once begins, it is difficult to fix the responsibility; but if one side left off, the occupation of the other would be gone. If you want to revenge yourselves on these fickle youths—strike! as they do in the manufacturing districts. Conceive the wholesome panic you would cause, if you combined into "unions" like the working-classes, and every girl in London bound herself not to flirt for the entire season! ”

“ It is a wretched Will-o'-the-wisp that tempts men to wade through mire in its pursuit, not the bright star fixed above them in the heavens to light up their path. I firmly believe," she went on, as she warmed to her theme, "that that one word 'Career,' has done more to demoralise public men than any other word in the language. It is one embodiment of that selfishness which we are taught from our cradles. Boys go to school with strict injunctions if possible to put self at the top of it. ”

“ First, I have given both Lady Broadhem and Grandon distinctly to understand that I am at this moment engaged to Ursula, which I am not; and secondly, I have solemnly assured that young lady herself that I am conscious of being occasionally mad."
In this tissue of falsehoods, it is poor consolation to think that the only one in which there may be some foundation of truth is the last. ”