there are few things in life more interesting than an unrestrained interchange of ideas with a congenial spirit, and there are few things more rare. how very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. on the contrary, if a man has by any chance what he conceives an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts. one of the principal causes of our renowned dulness in conversation is our extreme intellectual jealousy. it must be admitted that in this respect authors, but especially poets, bear the palm. they never think they are sufficiently appreciated, and live in tremor lest a brother should distinguish himself. artists have the repute of being nearly as bad. and as for a small rising politician, a clever speech by a supposed rival or suspected candidate for office destroys his appetite and disturbs his slumbers.
one of the chief delights and benefits of travel is, that one is perpetually meeting men of great abilities, of original mind, and rare acquirements, who will converse without reserve. in these discourses the intellect makes daring leaps and marvellous advances. the tone that colours our afterlife is often caught in these chance colloquies, and the bent given that shapes a career.
and yet perhaps there is no occasion when the heart is more open, the brain more quick, the memory more rich and happy, or the tongue more prompt and eloquent, than when two school-day friends, knit by every sympathy of intelligence and affection, meet at the close of their college careers, after a long separation, hesitating, as it were, on the verge of active life, and compare together their conclusions of the interval; impart to each other all their thoughts and secret plans and projects; high fancies and noble aspirations; glorious visions of personal fame and national regeneration.
ah! why should such enthusiasm ever die! life is too short to be little. man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervour.
most assuredly there never was a congress of friendship wherein more was said and felt than in this meeting, so long projected, and yet perhaps on the whole so happily procrastinated, between coningsby and millbank. in a moment they seemed as if they had never parted. their faithful correspondence indeed had maintained the chain of sentiment unbroken. but details are only for conversation. each poured forth his mind without stint. not an author that had influenced their taste or judgment but was canvassed and criticised; not a theory they had framed or a principle they had adopted that was not confessed. often, with boyish glee still lingering with their earnest purpose, they shouted as they discovered that they had formed the same opinion or adopted the same conclusion. they talked all day and late into the night. they condensed into a week the poignant conclusions of three years of almost unbroken study. and one night, as they sat together in millbank’s rooms at oriel, their conversation having for some time taken a political colour, millbank said,
‘now tell me, coningsby, exactly what you conceive to be the state of parties in this country; for it seems to me that if we penetrate the surface, the classification must be more simple than their many names would intimate.’
‘the principle of the exclusive constitution of england having been conceded by the acts of 1827-8-32,’ said coningsby, ‘a party has arisen in the state who demand that the principle of political liberalism shall consequently be carried to its extent; which it appears to them is impossible without getting rid of the fragments of the old constitution that remain. this is the destructive party; a party with distinct and intelligible principles. they seek a specific for the evils of our social system in the general suffrage of the population.
‘they are resisted by another party, who, having given up exclusion, would only embrace as much liberalism as is necessary for the moment; who, without any embarrassing promulgation of principles, wish to keep things as they find them as long as they can, and then will manage them as they find them as well as they can; but as a party must have the semblance of principles, they take the names of the things that they have destroyed. thus they are devoted to the prerogatives of the crown, although in truth the crown has been stripped of every one of its prerogatives; they affect a great veneration for the constitution in church and state, though every one knows that the constitution in church and state no longer exists; they are ready to stand or fall with the “independence of the upper house of parliament”, though, in practice, they are perfectly aware that, with their sanction, “the upper house” has abdicated its initiatory functions, and now serves only as a court of review of the legislation of the house of commons. whenever public opinion, which this party never attempts to form, to educate, or to lead, falls into some violent perplexity, passion, or caprice, this party yields without a struggle to the impulse, and, when the storm has passed, attempts to obstruct and obviate the logical and, ultimately, the inevitable results of the very measures they have themselves originated, or to which they have consented. this is the conservative party.
‘i care not whether men are called whigs or tories, radicals or chartists, or by what nickname a bustling and thoughtless race may designate themselves; but these two divisions comprehend at present the english nation.
‘with regard to the first school, i for one have no faith in the remedial qualities of a government carried on by a neglected democracy, who, for three centuries, have received no education. what prospect does it offer us of those high principles of conduct with which we have fed our imaginations and strengthened our will? i perceive none of the elements of government that should secure the happiness of a people and the greatness of a realm.
‘but in my opinion, if democracy be combated only by conservatism, democracy must triumph, and at no distant date. this, then, is our position. the man who enters public life at this epoch has to choose between political infidelity and a destructive creed.’
‘this, then,’ said millbank, ‘is the dilemma to which we are brought by nearly two centuries of parliamentary monarchy and parliamentary church.’
‘’tis true,’ said coningsby. ‘we cannot conceal it from ourselves, that the first has made government detested, and the second religion disbelieved.’
‘many men in this country,’ said millbank, ‘and especially in the class to which i belong, are reconciled to the contemplation of democracy; because they have accustomed themselves to believe, that it is the only power by which we can sweep away those sectional privileges and interests that impede the intelligence and industry of the community.’
‘and yet,’ said coningsby, ‘the only way to terminate what, in the language of the present day, is called class legislation, is not to entrust power to classes. you would find a locofoco majority as much addicted to class legislation as a factitious aristocracy. the only power that has no class sympathy is the sovereign.’
‘but suppose the case of an arbitrary sovereign, what would be your check against him?’
‘the same as against an arbitrary parliament.’
‘but a parliament is responsible.’
‘to whom?’
‘to their constituent body.’
‘suppose it was to vote itself perpetual?’
‘but public opinion would prevent that.’
‘and is public opinion of less influence on an individual than on a body?’
‘but public opinion may be indifferent. a nation may be misled, may be corrupt.’
‘if the nation that elects the parliament be corrupt, the elected body will resemble it. the nation that is corrupt deserves to fall. but this only shows that there is something to be considered beyond forms of government, national character. and herein mainly should we repose our hopes. if a nation be led to aim at the good and the great, depend upon it, whatever be its form, the government will respond to its convictions and its sentiments.’
‘do you then declare against parliamentary government.’
‘far from it: i look upon political change as the greatest of evils, for it comprehends all. but if we have no faith in the permanence of the existing settlement, if the very individuals who established it are, year after year, proposing their modifications or their reconstructions; so also, while we uphold what exists, ought we to prepare ourselves for the change we deem impending?
‘now i would not that either ourselves, or our fellow-citizens, should be taken unawares as in 1832, when the very men who opposed the reform bill offered contrary objections to it which destroyed each other, so ignorant were they of its real character, its historical causes, its political consequences. we should now so act that, when the occasions arrives, we should clearly comprehend what we want, and have formed an opinion as to the best means by which that want can be supplied.
‘for this purpose i would accustom the public mind to the contemplation of an existing though torpid power in the constitution, capable of removing our social grievances, were we to transfer to it those prerogatives which the parliament has gradually usurped, and used in a manner which has produced the present material and moral disorganisation. the house of commons is the house of a few; the sovereign is the sovereign of all. the proper leader of the people is the individual who sits upon the throne.’
‘then you abjure the representative principle?’
‘why so? representation is not necessarily, or even in a principal sense, parliamentary. parliament is not sitting at this moment, and yet the nation is represented in its highest as well as in its most minute interests. not a grievance escapes notice and redress. i see in the newspaper this morning that a pedagogue has brutally chastised his pupil. it is a fact known over all england. we must not forget that a principle of government is reserved for our days that we shall not find in our aristotles, or even in the forests of tacitus, nor in our saxon wittenagemotes, nor in our plantagenet parliaments. opinion is now supreme, and opinion speaks in print. the representation of the press is far more complete than the representation of parliament. parliamentary representation was the happy device of a ruder age, to which it was admirably adapted: an age of semi-civilisation, when there was a leading class in the community; but it exhibits many symptoms of desuetude. it is controlled by a system of representation more vigorous and comprehensive; which absorbs its duties and fulfils them more efficiently, and in which discussion is pursued on fairer terms, and often with more depth and information.’
‘and to what power would you entrust the function of taxation?’
‘to some power that would employ it more discreetly than in creating our present amount of debt, and in establishing our present system of imposts.
‘in a word, true wisdom lies in the policy that would effect its ends by the influence of opinion, and yet by the means of existing forms. nevertheless, if we are forced to revolutions, let us propose to our consideration the idea of a free monarchy, established on fundamental laws, itself the apex of a vast pile of municipal and local government, ruling an educated people, represented by a free and intellectual press. before such a royal authority, supported by such a national opinion, the sectional anomalies of our country would disappear. under such a system, where qualification would not be parliamentary, but personal, even statesmen would be educated; we should have no more diplomatists who could not speak french, no more bishops ignorant of theology, no more generals-in-chief who never saw a field.
‘now there is a polity adapted to our laws, our institutions, our feelings, our manners, our traditions; a polity capable of great ends and appealing to high sentiments; a polity which, in my opinion, would render government an object of national affection, which would terminate sectional anomalies, assuage religious heats, and extinguish chartism.’
‘you said to me yesterday,’ said millbank after a pause, ‘quoting the words of another, which you adopted, that man was made to adore and to obey. now you have shown to me the means by which you deem it possible that government might become no longer odious to the subject; you have shown how man may be induced to obey. but there are duties and interests for man beyond political obedience, and social comfort, and national greatness, higher interests and greater duties. how would you deal with their spiritual necessities? you think you can combat political infidelity in a nation by the principle of enlightened loyalty; how would you encounter religious infidelity in a state? by what means is the principle of profound reverence to be revived? how, in short, is man to be led to adore?’
‘ah! that is a subject which i have not forgotten,’ replied coningsby. ‘i know from your letters how deeply it has engaged your thoughts. i confess to you that it has often filled mine with perplexity and depression. when we were at eton, and both of us impregnated with the contrary prejudices in which we had been brought up, there was still between us one common ground of sympathy and trust; we reposed with confidence and affection in the bosom of our church. time and thought, with both of us, have only matured the spontaneous veneration of our boyhood. but time and thought have also shown me that the church of our heart is not in a position, as regards the community, consonant with its original and essential character, or with the welfare of the nation.’
‘the character of a church is universality,’ replied millbank. ‘once the church in this country was universal in principle and practice; when wedded to the state, it continued at least universal in principle, if not in practice. what is it now? all ties between the state and the church are abolished, except those which tend to its danger and degradation.
‘what can be more anomalous than the present connection between state and church? every condition on which it was originally consented to has been cancelled. that original alliance was, in my view, an equal calamity for the nation and the church; but, at least, it was an intelligible compact. parliament, then consisting only of members of the established church, was, on ecclesiastical matters, a lay synod, and might, in some points of view, be esteemed a necessary portion of church government. but you have effaced this exclusive character of parliament; you have determined that a communion with the established church shall no longer be part of the qualification for sitting in the house of commons. there is no reason, so far as the constitution avails, why every member of the house of commons should not be a dissenter. but the whole power of the country is concentrated in the house of commons. the house of lords, even the monarch himself, has openly announced and confessed, within these ten years, that the will of the house of commons is supreme. a single vote of the house of commons, in 1832, made the duke of wellington declare, in the house of lords, that he was obliged to abandon his sovereign in “the most difficult and distressing circumstances.” the house of commons is absolute. it is the state. “l’etat c’est moi.” the house of commons virtually appoints the bishops. a sectarian assembly appoints the bishops of the established church. they may appoint twenty hoadleys. james ii was expelled the throne because he appointed a roman catholic to an anglican see. a parliament might do this to-morrow with impunity. and this is the constitution in church and state which conservative dinners toast! the only consequences of the present union of church and state are, that, on the side of the state, there is perpetual interference in ecclesiastical government, and on the side of the church a sedulous avoidance of all those principles on which alone church government can be established, and by the influence of which alone can the church of england again become universal.’
‘but it is urged that the state protects its revenues?’
‘no ecclesiastical revenues should be safe that require protection. modern history is a history of church spoliation. and by whom? not by the people; not by the democracy. no; it is the emperor, the king, the feudal baron, the court minion. the estate of the church is the estate of the people, so long as the church is governed on its real principles. the church is the medium by which the despised and degraded classes assert the native equality of man, and vindicate the rights and power of intellect. it made, in the darkest hour of norman rule, the son of a saxon pedlar primate of england, and placed nicholas breakspear, a hertfordshire peasant, on the throne of the caesars. it would do as great things now, if it were divorced from the degrading and tyrannical connection that enchains it. you would have other sons of peasants bishops of england, instead of men appointed to that sacred office solely because they were the needy scions of a factitious aristocracy; men of gross ignorance, profligate habits, and grinding extortion, who have disgraced the episcopal throne, and profaned the altar.’
‘but surely you cannot justly extend such a description to the present bench?’
‘surely not: i speak of the past, of the past that has produced so much present evil. we live in decent times; frigid, latitudinarian, alarmed, decorous. a priest is scarcely deemed in our days a fit successor to the authors of the gospels, if he be not the editor of a greek play; and he who follows st. paul must now at least have been private tutor of some young nobleman who has taken a good degree! and then you are all astonished that the church is not universal! why! nothing but the indestructibleness of its principles, however feebly pursued, could have maintained even the disorganised body that still survives.
‘and yet, my dear coningsby, with all its past errors and all its present deficiencies, it is by the church; i would have said until i listened to you to-night; by the church alone that i see any chance of regenerating the national character. the parochial system, though shaken by the fatal poor-law, is still the most ancient, the most comprehensive, and the most popular institution of the country; the younger priests are, in general, men whose souls are awake to the high mission which they have to fulfil, and which their predecessors so neglected; there is, i think, a rising feeling in the community, that parliamentary intercourse in matters ecclesiastical has not tended either to the spiritual or the material elevation of the humbler orders. divorce the church from the state, and the spiritual power that struggled against the brute force of the dark ages, against tyrannical monarchs and barbarous barons, will struggle again in opposition to influences of a different form, but of a similar tendency; equally selfish, equally insensible, equally barbarising. the priests of god are the tribunes of the people. o, ignorant! that with such a mission they should ever have cringed in the antechambers of ministers, or bowed before parliamentary committees!’
‘the utilitarian system is dead,’ said coningsby. ‘it has passed through the heaven of philosophy like a hailstorm, cold, noisy, sharp, and peppering, and it has melted away. and yet can we wonder that it found some success, when we consider the political ignorance and social torpor which it assailed? anointed kings turned into chief magistrates, and therefore much overpaid; estates of the realm changed into parliaments of virtual representation, and therefore requiring real reform; holy church transformed into national establishment, and therefore grumbled at by all the nation for whom it was not supported. what an inevitable harvest of sedition, radicalism, infidelity! i really think there is no society, however great its resources, that could long resist the united influences of chief magistrate, virtual representation, and church establishment!’
‘i have immense faith in the new generation,’ said millbank, eagerly.
‘it is a holy thing to see a state saved by its youth,’ said coningsby; and then he added, in a tone of humility, if not of depression, ‘but what a task! what a variety of qualities, what a combination of circumstances is requisite! what bright abilities and what noble patience! what confidence from the people, what favour from the most high!’
‘but he will favour us,’ said millbank. ‘and i say to you as nathan said unto david, “thou art the man!” you were our leader at eton; the friends of your heart and boyhood still cling and cluster round you! they are all men whose position forces them into public life. it is a nucleus of honour, faith, and power. you have only to dare. and will you not dare? it is our privilege to live in an age when the career of the highest ambition is identified with the performance of the greatest good. of the present epoch it may be truly said, “who dares to be good, dares to be great.”’
‘heaven is above all,’ said coningsby. ‘the curtain of our fate is still undrawn. we are happy in our friends, dear millbank, and whatever lights, we will stand together. for myself, i prefer fame to life; and yet, the consciousness of heroic deeds to the most wide-spread celebrity.’
