Addington

“ Jeff was looking at him quizzically.
"Where do you live," said he, "in the new Addington or the old one?"
Choate answered rather wearily, as if he had asked himself that question and found the answer disheartening.
"Don't know. Guess I'm a non-resident everywhere. I curse about Addington by the hour—the new Addington. But it's come, and come to stay."
"You going to let Moore administer it?"
"If he's elected."
"He can't be elected. We won't have it. What you going to do?"
"Nothing, in politics," said Alston. "They're too vile for a decent man to touch." ”

“ At Addington are not only numerous tumuli, but it is a tradition among the inhabitants that the place was formerly of much greater extent than at present, and we are told that timbers and other material of ruined buildings are occasionally turned up by the plough: here also is an oak of which the trunk measures nearly 36 feet in girth, and in the churchyard is a yew which from the great circumference of its trunk must be of very great antiquity; that Addington was once a seat of the Aeddons or Magi, is an inference of high probability. ”

“ The business men looked at him with the slow smile of the sane for the fanatic and answered from the fatuous optimism of the man who expects the world to last at least his time. Some of them said something about "this great country", as if it were chartered by the Almighty to stand the assaults of other races, and when he reminded them that Addington was not trying to amalgamate its aliens with its own ideals, and was giving them over instead to Weedon Moore, they laughed at him. ”

“ Choate, you're about the only hope of tradition and decency here in Addington. Don't you know that?"
"I'm a weak man," said Alston, looking up at him unhappily. "I don't half care for these things. I like the decent thing done, but, Jeff, I don't want to pitch into the dirty business and call names and be called names and uncover smells. I'd rather quit the whole business and go to Europe."
"And let Addington go to pot? Why, we'd all rather [Pg 385] go to Europe, if Addington could be kept on her pins without us. But she can't. We've got to see the old girl through." ”

“ As it disappeared up the avenue towards the house I heard a faint bubble of laughter in my ear. I turned in surprise.
“Why, Peace,” I said, “what is the joke?”
“There is no joke, Mr. Phillips,” he answered. “It was fate that laughed, not I.”
There were moments when, to a man of ordinary curiosity, Inspector Addington Peace was extremely irritating. ”

“ He was a demagogue. The old never-formulated love for Addington came back to Jeff in a rush, not recognised as love an hour ago, only the careless affection of usage, but ready, he knew, to spring into something warmer when her dear old bulwarks were assailed. You don't usually feel a romantic passion for your mother. You allow her to feed you and be patronised by you and stand aside to let victorious youth pass on. But see unworthy hands touching her worn dress—the hands of Weedon Moore!—and you snatch it from their grasp. ”

“ The mass of his supporters, who admired and obeyed him, were not drawn to him personally. Men of the highest rank found him stiff and unbending; and the king, though he esteemed him, looked on him as a master, and felt far more comfortable with Addington. ”

“ The act grew colossal, for it meant so matchless a creature must love him unquestioningly or she could not step outside her fine decorum. Every thought of her drew him toward her. Every manly and also every ambitious impulse of his entire life—the ambition that bade him tread as near as possible to Addington's upper class—forbade his seeking her until he had a right to. ”

“ Addington is the person intended for my successor. He wants only a little more age, and being a little more known, to make his nomination unexceptionable; but I certainly cannot but confess that he does want both these. It is, however, the best appointment that we can make to a situation to which so few people are willing to look, and for which so much fewer are at all qualified. ”

“ One of the most fatal nicknames ever given to a politician was one fastened by Sheridan upon Addington, the Prime Minister of England, in a speech made in Parliament in 1803. Addington was the son of an eminent physician, and something in his air and manner had given him, to a limited extent, the name of “the Doctor.” Sheridan, alluding to the personal dislike of Addington felt by many, quoted the well known epigram of Martial:
“Non amo te, Sabine, nec possum dicere quare ”

“ For twenty years Addington practised in London with eminent success. Among his patients was Lord Chatham, his professional connection with whom ripened into something like confidential friendship. In the ‘Chatham Correspondence’ there are several letters from the statesman indicating a warm personal interest in the physician and his family. During his severe illness in 1767 Chatham respectfully declined George III's suggestion that another physician should be called in to Dr. Addington's assistance. The opposition saw in this confidence a proof that Chatham's disease could only be insanity. ”

“ In brief, men were always divided in their own minds in regard to Ralph Addington. They knew that, constantly, he broke every canon of that mysterious flexible, half-developed code which governs their relations with women. ”

“ He had a stiffly drawn picture of what a woman ought to be. She really conformed to Addington ideals. He believed firmly that the austere and noble dwelt within woman as Addington had framed her. It would have given him no pleasure to find a savage hidden under pretty wiles. But Alston believed so sincerely in the control of man over the forces of life, of which woman was one, that, if Esther had stepped backward from her bright estate into a barbarous challenge, it was his fault, he owned, not hers. ”

“ Addington therefore rejoined the ministry, taking the title of Lord Sidmouth and the office of President of the Council, which the Duke of Portland was compelled by ill health to resign. Pitt's majority was thus increased, although the strength gained by the adhesion of Addington himself to his ministry was not much.
Spain joins France. ”

“ But I can't. Addington's more my size. If there were invasion, you know, a crippled man couldn't do more than try to defend his own dooryard. Dear old girl, we've got to save Addington."
"I'm trying," said she. "Jeff, dear, I'm trying. And I've a lot of money. I don't know how it rolled up so."
"Don't give it to Weedon Moore, that's all," he ventured, and then, in the stiffening of her whole body, he saw it was a mistake even to mention Moore. Her large charity made her fiercely partisan. He ventured the audacious personal appeal. "Give me some, Amabel, if you've really got so much. ”

“ With the ministry of Mr Addington, Lord St Vincent retired from public life. He was now old, and the hardships of long service had partially exhausted his original vigour of frame. He retired to his seat, Rochetts in Essex, and there led the delightful life of a man who had gained opulence and distinction by pre-eminent services, and whose old age was surrounded by love, honour, and troops of friends. ”

“ But women should be inaccessible,” he ended with a sigh.
“Not so inaccessible as they were, though,” Ralph Addington said. Again the appearance of the women had transformed him physically and mentally. He moved with the nervous activity of a man strung on wires. His brown eyes showed yellow gleams like a cat’s. “They’re flying lower and slower to-night.”
It did seem as though the fog, light as it was, definitely impeded their wings. It gave to their movements a little languor that had a plaintive appealing quality. Perhaps they realized this themselves. ”

“ The information of Miss Sherrick and her uncle's own explanation as to his quarrel with his brother over the spear swept away my last doubt. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said. “It seems simple now. Bulstrode has had bad luck, though. Things look black against him.”
“I think he will be all right,” said Addington Peace. “His story has the merit of being not only easily understandable, but true.”
“And Boyne?”
“I saw him meet Miss Sherrick. It was enough to make an old bachelor repent his ways, Mr. Phillips. Believe me, there is a great happiness of which we cannot guess—we lonely men.” ”

“ Addington, though agreeing wholly with the Ministry and differing with the Whigs, he even then refused to profit by a position so favorable to his interests, and submitted, like certain religionists, from a point of honor, to suffer for a faith in which he did not believe—it seems impossible not to concede that even to the obligations of Party he was as faithful as could be expected from a spirit that so far outgrew its limits, and, in paying the tax of fidelity while he asserted the freedom of dissent, showed that he could sacrifice every thing to it, except his opinion. ”

“ I put my hand in my pocket, hesitated, and drew it out empty. It was too public a place for corruption. If Addington Peace had only been with me, I thought—and, so thinking, came by an idea. Even a rural policeman would know the famous detective's name. ”

“ Esther once told Aunt Patricia there were women selected by the other women to "do their dirty work ". But what she really meant was that Addington had a middle-aged few of the old stock who, with an arrogant induration in their own position, out of which no attacking humour could deliver them, held, as they judged, the contract to put questions. ”

“ No man in Addington had attained a higher proficiency in the practical arts of correct and comfortable living, and it was owing to the power of Esther's fastidious reserves that he had begun to think all women were not alike, after all. ”

“ Some took twice the number, some even crossed over from session to session. The first committee on which Addington was engaged had this unfortunate duration, and he was re-appointed to it in the second session of the parliament of 1785.
At this period, whether from a sense of disappointment, or from the silent dulness of this drudgery, his health appears to have been in a feeble state. In a letter to his father, he apologises for listlessness and stupidity by illness, and says, "that he does not come up to the definition of man as a risible animal." ”

“ You have rather more than your fair share of the rug, Mr. Phillips, if you will excuse my mentioning it.”
A man was standing on the steps of the entrance porch when we drove up. As we unrolled ourselves he stepped forward to help us. He was a thin, pale-faced fellow, with fair hair and indeterminate eyes.
“My name is Harbord,” he said. “You are Inspector Addington Peace, I believe.”
His hand shook as he stretched it out in a tremulous greeting. Plainly the secretary was afraid, visibly and anxiously afraid.
“Mr. Ransom, the manager of Mr. Ford's London office, is here,” he continued. ”

“ The Portuguese contest, the chance of the King of Spain’s death and a disputed succession, the recognition of the South American colonies, and commercial arrangements with this country, present a mass of interests which demand considerable dexterity and judgment; besides, Addington is a Tory, and does not act in the spirit of this Government, so they will recall him without ceremony. There is another Ambassador (Frederic Lamb) whose principles are equally at variance with those of Palmerston, and who is completely be-Metternich’d, but his removal is out of the question ”

“ Addington Peace walked to the window and stood there staring out at the elm avenue that swayed softly in the breeze.
“Is the doctor still in the house?” he asked over his shoulder.
“No, sir.”
“We have none too much light left. Have you the spear?”
The sergeant opened a side cupboard and drew out two pieces of light-coloured wood. The polished surface was dulled by stains that were self-explanatory. The head was broad and flat, formed of the finest jade, microscopically carved. It had been fashioned for Eastern ceremony, and not for battle. That was plain enough. ”

“ Then Cy Addington found his precious calf and the neighbors had an indignation meeting right then and there and the ones who had the most clothes on started out to find the offenders and some of the others went in to quiet Miss Cymantha, and a few others put the sexton to bed and locked him in so that he couldn't give any more alarms! ”

“ Antholin’s, and was elected evening preacher at the Foundling hospital, which the state of his health obliged him to resign. The bishop of London presented him with a small prebend in the cathedral of St. Paul’s, which he relinquished on receiving the rectory of Stapleford, Herts. In 1804, he was presented by Lord Sidmouth (then Mr. Addington) with the valuable living of West Ham, in Essex, when he resigned every other clerical charge except that of Cripplegate, to which parish he was attached by warm feelings of gratitude. ”

“ But as I glance over the notes and journals before me, as I read, at random, snatches of the letters that litter my table, I half regret that I have been led into revelations which I must necessarily leave incomplete, or rashly involve myself in disclosures which I have no right to publish to the world.
So far as I can venture, however, I will dare to go. And to resume where I left off: From the time I saw the minister at Hounslow, I never beheld him again. A certain Mr. Addington—one of his secretaries, I believe—received me when I called, and was the means of intercourse between us. ”