Roly

“ Once, when I was a little fellow of about seven years old, I was taken to pay a visit to an old lady who lived in the country. Children were brought up on the plainest fare in those days—porridge, and bread and milk, roast beef or mutton with potatoes, rice pudding or suet dumpling, with jam roly-poly, as a special treat on your birthday, was all that was considered good for us; so you can imagine I felt pleased when I saw a large pudding full of currants come on to the table at dinner-time. ”

“ He always came into the shop at the same time—half-past two; he always sat in the seat next the window; and three days out of six, he would order the same dinner: a fourpenny beef-steak pudding—we called it beef-steak, and, for all practical purposes, it was beef-steak—a penny plate of potatoes, and a penny slice of roly-poly pudding—'chest expander' was the name our customers gave it—to follow. That showed sense, I always thought, that dinner alone; a more satisfying menu, at the price, I defy any human being to work out. He always had a book with him, and he generally read during his meal ”

“ Besides its poisonous infection, it distends or bloats the stomach, bowels, and tissues—a fact especially noticeable in the abdominal region, giving the appearance of corpulency or obesity to many, when really it is only abdominal ballooning or gaseous obeseness. Roly-polies—and there are a great many of them—will have their pride greatly hurt by accounting for their condition in this way, but the truth must be told and they might as well face the facts first as last. Gaseous obesity, or borborygmus, is spoken of popularly as wind in the stomach and bowels. ”

“ Croly, in his 'Life of George IV.,' tells the remainder of the story: 'The narrator of the circumstance, a person of rank, who was present, himself one of the most attractive public speakers of the day, has often declared that he never, on any occasion, saw any individual, under the circumstances, acquit himself with more ability. ”

“ We have now only to show what capacities and talents must be possessed by the true Ruler,—by what estimate of his calling, and what mode of practising it, he proves that he looks upon it as sacred.
He who undertakes to guide his Age and order its constitution, must be exalted above it,—must not merely possess an historical knowledge of it, but must thoroughly understand and comprehend it. The Ruler possesses, in the first place, a living and comprehensive idea of that relation of human life which he undertakes to superintend;—he knows what is its essential nature, meaning, and purpose. ”

“ The Ruler, after our idea of him, in his estimate of mankind looks beyond that which they are in the actual world, to that which they are in the Divine Idea—to that which therefore they may be, ought to be, and one day assuredly will be ”

“ And what therefore is loyalty proper, the life-breath of all society, but an effluence of Hero-worship, submissive admiration for the truly great? Society is founded on Hero-worship. All dignities of rank, on which human association rests, are what we may call a Heroarchy (Government of Heroes) ,—or a Hierarchy, for it is ‘sacred’ enough withal! The Duke means Dux, Leader; King is Kön-ning, Kan-ning, Man that knows or cans. Society everywhere is some representation, not insupportably inaccurate, of a graduated Worship of Heroes;—reverence and obedience done to men really great and wise. ”

“ The Ruler, after our idea of him, is secure against this view of his calling. Through the idea of human life by which he is animated, the Race among whom he practises his vocation is likewise ennobled. He who has constantly to keep in view the infirmities and weaknesses of men, who has to watch their daily course, and who has frequent opportunities of observing their general meanness and corruption, and who sees nothing more than these, cannot be much disposed to honour or to love them ”

“ Raoul, learn how to distinguish the king from royalty; the king is but a man; royalty is the gift of God. Whenever you hesitate as to whom you ought to serve, abandon the exterior, the material appearance for the invisible principle, for the invisible principle is everything. Raoul, I seem to read your future destiny as through a cloud. It will be happier, I think, than ours has been. Different in your fate from us, you will have a king without a minister, whom you may serve, love, respect. ”

“ A portly, upright, broad-shouldered, brown-faced man, whose soldierly bearing gives him the appearance of being taller than he is, look into the bright eye of M. Loyal, standing before you in his working-blouse and cap, not particularly well shaved, and, it may be, very earthy, and you shall discern in M. Loyal a gentleman whose true politeness is ingrain, and confirmation of whose word by his bond you would blush to think of. ”

“ His slow, but singularly masculine, intelligence taught him that precedent is only another name for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in the guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual life. ”

“ Here's a rogue, brother Foresight, makes a bargain under hand and seal in the morning, and would be released from it in the afternoon; here's a rogue, dog, here's conscience and honesty; this is your wit now, this is the morality of your wits! You are a wit, and have been a beau, and may be a--why sirrah, is it not here under hand and seal-- can you deny it? ”

“ But the parts of the Whole must often be placed in peril on account of the Whole; peril by which, and not by the Ruler, its victims are selected from among individual men. How could a Ruler who recognises no other destiny for the Human Race but happiness here below, and looks upon himself only as the kind guardian of that happiness,—how could he answer before his conscience for the danger and possible sacrifice of any individual victim, since that individual must have had as good a claim to happiness as any other? ”

“ The harsh, stern spirit passed without a pang,
And freed of mortal clogs his message rang.
In every wakeful mind the challenge cried:
Think not of me: one servant less or more
Means nothing now: hold fast the greater thing—
Strike hard, love truth, serve England and the King! ”

“ He who can not look upon human affairs with this unfettered vision is never a Ruler, whatever station he may occupy,—nor can he ever become one. Even his mode of thought, his faith in the unchangeableness of the present, places him in a state of subordination, makes him an instrument of him who created that arrangement of things in the permanence of which he believes. ”

“ You must learn, Mattern, that the concept of a ruler in this universe differs from the concept in yours. Here a ruler is the servant of her people, not their master. It is her obligation to take care of them, protect them, watch over them—in whatever way seems most fitting to her. She can have no pride in herself, only in them. ”

“ I'm used to talking to the people. I face you every night: I am Mademoiselle Contat.
The Crowd.⁠Contat of the Théâtre-Français!—The Théâtre-Français!—Oh, let's see her!—Silence!
La Contat.⁠So you don't like the Queen? Do you want her sent away? Would you like to exile every pretty woman from France? You have only to say the word: we'll pack up and go. See what will happen without us. You really make me laugh, calling me an aristocrat! I'm the daughter of a herring-dealer, who kept shop just under the Châtelet. I work like the rest of you. I am for Necker just as you are. ”

“ The very homeliness of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as he, nor so little conscious of it; for he was the incarnate common-sense of the people. With all that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness touched whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, there was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. ”

“ To obtain the peoples' love, a ruler should be kind and bountiful. To obtain the peoples' trust, a ruler should be just, wise, and faithful. To demonstrate this, a ruler should be eloquent in showing the people an understanding better than theirs, the wisdom to anticipate events, and the ability to deal with adverse events. ”

“ The wine is just as good even if it is not out of the old casks, and here’s to the King and his people!
“Frankly, dear children, I love myself better than any King, so liberty for us, my countrymen! and to the devil with our rulers! As long as we are here, the land I love, and I, all is well; so what need have we of a King on earth or in Heaven? Or of a throne for him to sit on? Let each man have his share of the sun and shade, his bit of land, and his arms to work with, no one could ask more ”

“ Most beautiful of all the stories in which they figure is that of Roland’s ill-fated love, the lie,—discovered too late,—the fair young girl’s life given to God, in the dreary cloister,—the champion’s given for his king on the bloody field of battle. ”

“ NUMBER XII. Though we have at length nearly exhausted the beauties of that part of our author’s work, in which the characters of the leading Members of the House of Commons are so poetically and forcibly delineated; we shall find, however, that the genius of the poet seems to receive fresh vigour, as he approaches the period of his exertions, in the illustrious Mr. ROLLE. What can be more sublime or picturesque than the following description! ”

“ I'll smash in the head of the first man who comes a step nearer. Respect the women, I tell you! If you want to fight, there's no lack of enemies. Go and find them.
The Crowd.⁠He's right.—Bravo!—No, he isn't!—She insulted us.—She's got to apologize! On her knees, the aristocrat!—Make her cry Down with the Queen!
La Contat.⁠I won't cry anything. [To Desmoulins.] Help me to get up here. [She stands on a table.] If you bully me any more I'll cry Down with Necker! [Cries from the Crowd.] I'm not afraid of you. ”

“ The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. ”

“ She lays her hand upon thee, and thou falling into her ranks, goest to swell the legions of dependent things—the leader, it may be, but not the antagonist of nature. She bends thee down under the law of causality, and, standing in her muster-roll, thou art forced to acknowledge that law as the sovereign of thy soul. ”

“ Is not this the way to make the weight of royalty easy—oh, most easy!—to a burthened people? The beef-and-pudding representatives of His Royal Highness, preaching upon every poor man’s table, would carry the consolations of loyalty to every poor man’s stomach. ”

“ During a long and peaceful reign, the king had in no way contrived to grow on to the people. He{205} was in no sense of the word a Head to them. A nation can be loyal to a Man, or to the representative of an Idea. ”

“ How absurd to speak of it as an impersonal authority, to invest it with a quasi-sacred character! The state consists of a few elderly gentlemen, for the most part of less than average ability, for they are cut off from the new life of the masses. ”

“ Cast the glad omen of one favouring look.
But it is on public grounds, that I principally wish to vindicate my choice of YOUR HONOUR for my Patron. The ROLLIAD, I have reason to believe, owed its existence to the [2] memorable speech of the Member of Devonshire on the first Discussion of the Westminster Scrutiny, when he so emphatically proved himself the genuine descendant of DUKE ROLLO; and in the noble contempt which he avowed, for the boasted rights of Electors, seemed to breathe the very soul of his great progenitor, who came to extirpate the liberties of Englishmen with the sword. ”

“ The rogue fumbled his doffed hat.
“None of my own, master, but my brother’s. A waits in the street below, unwitting of my purpose.”
“What need? What purpose? State, state, and be done with it.”
“The purpose to have his wits cured, if so be I can entice him into your honour’s presence.”
“What, then, hath befallen his wits?”
“What not, great sir? A thinks every one he meets doth owe him money, and importunes the same for payment.” ”

“ He also made a couple of chalk drawings in which the sentiment is much more high flown, and which still exist; in one of them Liberty is to be seen dragging kings by the hair of the head, in the other victoriously brandishing her spear. ”

“ Crowd. Save the house!
Vintimille. And as for his wife, Messieurs—why burn what belongs to you? His wife is of the people. The Court, the city, the clergy, the middle-classes, have often appreciated her splendid qualities. She possesses a liberal mind, and she recognizes no privileges: the three orders are equal in her eyes. In her person she realizes the perfect union of the nation. Let us do honor to so rare a virtue. Messieurs, let us show mercy for Madame.
Desmoulins. ”

“ The pride of clan is now changed to pride of race; loyalty to feudal chief has become loyalty to the Emperor as sovereign; and the old traits of character exist under the European costumes of to-day, as under the flowing robes of the two-sworded retainer. ”

“ What fact more conspicuous in modern history than the creation of the gentleman? Chivalry is that, and loyalty is that, and, in English literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir Philip Sidney to Sir Walter Scott, paint this figure. The word gentleman, which, like the word Christian, must hereafter characterize the present and the few preceding centuries by the importance attached to it, is a homage to personal and incommunicable properties. ”

“ My father was silent for some time, and then he said, "Roland, thou art but a boy yet. There is much to be done. But thou must see the king, and thou must go to the king's Court. Meanwhile thou hast thine hand on the secret of power, and every wise man uses his power wisely." ”