The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

Westminster! If this special seat for Westminster could be carried, the country then could hardly any longer have a doubt on the matter. If only Mr. Melmotte could be got in for Westminster, it would be manifest that the people were sound at heart, and that all the great changes which had been effected during the last forty years⁠—from the first reform in Parliament down to the Ballot⁠—had been managed by the cunning and treachery of a few ambitious men. Not, however, that the ballot was just now regarded by the party as an unmitigated evil, though it was the last triumph of Radical wickedness. The ballot was on the whole popular with the party. A short time since, no doubt it was regarded by the party as being one and the same as national ruin and national disgrace. But it had answered well at Porcorum, and with due manipulation had been found to be favourable at Sticinthemud. The ballot might perhaps help the long pull and the strong pull⁠—and, in spite of the ruin and disgrace, was thought by some just now to be a highly Conservative measure. It was considered that the ballot might assist Melmotte at Westminster very materially.

Anyone reading the Conservative papers of the time, and hearing the Conservative speeches in the borough⁠—anyone at least who lived so remote as not to have learned what these things really mean⁠—would have thought that England’s welfare depended on Melmotte’s return. In the enthusiasm of the moment, the attacks made on his character were answered by eulogy as loud as the censure was bitter. The chief crime laid to his charge was connected with the ruin of some great continental assurance company, as to which it was said that he had so managed it as to leave it utterly stranded, with an enormous fortune of his own. It was declared that every shilling which he had brought to England with him had consisted of plunder stolen from the shareholders in the company. Now the Evening Pulpit, in its endeavour to make the facts of this transaction known, had placed what it called the domicile of this company in Paris, whereas it was ascertained that its official headquarters had in truth been placed at Vienna. Was not such a blunder as this sufficient to show that no merchant of higher honour than Mr. Melmotte had ever adorned the Exchanges of modern capitals? And then two different newspapers of the time, both of them antagonistic to Melmotte, failed to be in accord on a material point. One declared that Mr. Melmotte was not in truth possessed of any wealth. The other said that he had derived his wealth from those unfortunate shareholders. Could anything betray so bad a cause as contradictions such as these? Could anything be so false, so weak, so malignant, so useless, so wicked, so self-condemned⁠—in fact, so “Liberal” as a course of action such as this? The belief naturally to be deduced from such statements, nay, the unavoidable conviction on the minds⁠—of, at any rate, the Conservative newspapers⁠—was that Mr. Melmotte had accumulated an immense fortune, and that he had never robbed any shareholder of a shilling.

The friends of Melmotte had moreover a basis of hope, and were enabled to sound premonitory notes of triumph, arising from causes quite external to their party. The Breakfast Table supported Melmotte, but the Breakfast Table was not a Conservative organ. This support was given, not to the great man’s political opinions, as to which a well-known writer in that paper suggested that the great man had probably not as yet given very much attention to the party questions which divided the country⁠—but to his commercial position. It was generally acknowledged that few men living⁠—perhaps no man alive⁠—had so acute an insight into the great commercial questions of the age as Mr. Augustus Melmotte. In whatever part of the world he might have acquired his commercial experience⁠—for it had been said repeatedly that Melmotte was not an Englishman⁠—he now made London his home and Great Britain his country, and it would be for the welfare of the country that such a man should sit in the British Parliament. Such were the arguments used by the Breakfast Table in supporting Mr. Melmotte. This was, of course, an assistance;⁠—and not the less so because it was asserted in other papers that the country would be absolutely disgraced by his presence in Parliament. The hotter the opposition the keener will be the support. Honest good men, men who really loved their country, fine gentlemen, who had received unsullied names from great ancestors, shed their money right and left, and grew hot in personally energetic struggles to have this man returned to Parliament as the head of the great Conservative mercantile interests of Great Britain!

There was one man who thoroughly believed that the thing at the present moment most essentially necessary to England’s glory was the return of Mr. Melmotte for Westminster. This man was undoubtedly a very ignorant man. He knew nothing of anyone political question which had vexed England for the last half century⁠—nothing whatever of the political history which had made England what it was at the beginning of that half century. Of such names as Hampden, Somers, and Pitt he had hardly ever heard. He had probably never read a book in his life. He knew nothing of the working of parliament, nothing of nationality⁠—had no preference whatever for one form of government over another, never having given his mind a moment’s trouble on the subject. He had not even reflected how a despotic monarch or a federal republic might affect himself, and possibly did not comprehend the meaning of those terms. But yet he was fully confident that England did demand and ought to demand that Mr. Melmotte should be returned for Westminster. This man was Mr. Melmotte himself.

In this conjunction of his affairs Mr. Melmotte certainly lost his head. He had audacity almost sufficient for the very dangerous game which he was playing; but, as