‘this is a crash!’ said coningsby, with a grave rather than agitated countenance, to sidonia, as his friend came up to greet him, without, however, any expression of condolence.
‘this time next year you will not think so,’ said sidonia.
coningsby shrugged his shoulders.
‘the principal annoyance of this sort of miscarriage,’ said sidonia, ‘is the condolence of the gentle world. i think we may now depart. i am going home to dine. come, and discuss your position. for the present we will not speak of it.’ so saying, sidonia good-naturedly got coningsby out of the room.
they walked together to sidonia’s house in carlton gardens, neither of them making the slightest allusion to the catastrophe; sidonia inquiring where he had been, what he had been doing, since they last met, and himself conversing in his usual vein, though with a little more feeling in his manner than was his custom. when they had arrived there, sidonia ordered their dinner instantly, and during the interval between the command and its appearance, he called coningsby’s attention to an old german painting he had just received, its brilliant colouring and quaint costumes.
‘eat, and an appetite will come,’ said sidonia, when he observed coningsby somewhat reluctant. ‘take some of that chablis: it will put you right; you will find it delicious.’
in this way some twenty minutes passed; their meal was over, and they were alone together.
‘i have been thinking all this time of your position,’ said sidonia.
‘a sorry one, i fear,’ said coningsby.
‘i really cannot see that,’ said his friend. ‘you have experienced this morning a disappointment, but not a calamity. if you had lost your eye it would have been a calamity: no combination of circumstances could have given you another. there are really no miseries except natural miseries; conventional misfortunes are mere illusions. what seems conventionally, in a limited view, a great misfortune, if subsequently viewed in its results, is often the happiest incident in one’s life.’
‘i hope the day may come when i may feel this.’
‘now is the moment when philosophy is of use; that is to say, now is the moment when you should clearly comprehend the circumstances which surround you. holiday philosophy is mere idleness. you think, for example, that you have just experienced a great calamity, because you have lost the fortune on which you counted?’
‘i must say i do.’
‘i ask you again, which would you have rather lost, your grandfather’s inheritance or your right leg?’
‘most certainly my inheritance,’
‘or your left arm?’
‘still the inheritance.’
‘would you have received the inheritance on condition that your front teeth should be knocked out?’
‘no.’
‘would you have given up a year of your life for that fortune trebled?’
‘even at twenty-three i would have refused the terms.’
‘come, come, coningsby, the calamity cannot be very great.’
‘why, you have put it in an ingenious point of view; and yet it is not so easy to convince a man, that he should be content who has lost everything.’
‘you have a great many things at this moment that you separately prefer to the fortune that you have forfeited. how then can you be said to have lost everything?’
‘what have i?’ said coningsby, despondingly.
‘you have health, youth, good looks, great abilities, considerable knowledge, a fine courage, a lofty spirit, and no contemptible experience. with each of these qualities one might make a fortune; the combination ought to command the highest.’
‘you console me,’ said coningsby, with a faint blush and a fainter smile.
‘i teach you the truth. that is always solacing. i think you are a most fortunate young man; i should not have thought you more fortunate if you had been your grandfather’s heir; perhaps less so. but i wish you to comprehend your position: if you understand it you will cease to lament.’
‘but what should i do?’
‘bring your intelligence to bear on the right object. i make you no offers of fortune, because i know you would not accept them, and indeed i have no wish to see you a lounger in life. if you had inherited a great patrimony, it is possible your natural character and previous culture might have saved you from its paralysing influence; but it is a question, even with you. now you are free; that is to say, you are free, if you are not in debt. a man who has not seen the world, whose fancy is harassed with glittering images of pleasures he has never experienced, cannot live on 300l. per annum; but you can. you have nothing to haunt your thoughts, or disturb the abstraction of your studies. you have seen the most beautiful women; you have banqueted in palaces; you know what heroes, and wits, and statesmen are made of: and you can draw on your memory instead of your imagination for all those dazzling and interesting objects that make the inexperienced restless, and are the cause of what are called scrapes. but you can do nothing if you be in debt. you must be free. before, therefore, we proceed, i must beg you to be frank on this head. if you have any absolute or contingent incumbrances, tell me of them without reserve, and permit me to clear them at once to any amount. you will sensibly oblige me in so doing: because i am interested in watching your career, and if the racer start with a clog my psychological observations will be imperfect.’
‘you are, indeed, a friend; and had i debts i would ask you to pay them. i have nothing of the kind. my grandfather was so lavish in his allowance to me that i never got into difficulties. besides, there are horses and things without end which i must sell, and money at drummonds’.’
‘that will produce your outfit, whatever the course you adopt. i conceive there are two careers which deserve your consideration. in the first place there is diplomacy. if you decide upon that, i can assist you. there exist between me and the minister such relations that i can at once secure you that first step which is so difficult to obtain. after that, much, if not all, depends on yourself. but i could advance you, provided you were capable. you should, at least, not languish for want of preferment. in an important post, i could throw in your way advantages which would soon permit you to control cabinets. information commands the world. i doubt not your success, and for such a career, speedy. let us assume it as a fact. is it a result satisfactory? suppose yourself in a dozen years a plenipotentiary at a chief court, or at a critical post, with a red ribbon and the privy council in immediate perspective; and, after a lengthened career, a pension and a peerage. would that satisfy you? you don’t look excited. i am hardly surprised. in your position it would not satisfy me. a diplomatist is, after all, a phantom. there is a want of nationality about his being. i always look upon diplomatists as the hebrews of politics; without country, political creeds, popular convictions, that strong reality of existence which pervades the career of an eminent citizen in a free and great country.’
‘you read my thoughts,’ said coningsby. ‘i should be sorry to sever myself from england.’
‘there remains then the other, the greater, the nobler career,’ said sidonia, ‘which in england may give you all, the bar. i am absolutely persuaded that with the requisite qualifications, and with perseverance, success at the bar is certain. it may be retarded or precipitated by circumstances, but cannot be ultimately affected. you have a right to count with your friends on no lack of opportunities when you are ripe for them. you appear to me to have all the qualities necessary for the bar; and you may count on that perseverance which is indispensable, for the reason i have before mentioned, because it will be sustained by your experience.’
‘i have resolved,’ said coningsby; ‘i will try for the great seal.’
