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

“There can be no safer lesson. But we must hope that some may be saved even if they have not practised at all times that grand self-denial. Who comes up to that teaching? Do you not wish for, nay, almost demand, instant pardon for any trespass that you may commit⁠—of temper, or manner, for instance? and are you always ready to forgive in that way yourself? Do you not writhe with indignation at being wrongly judged by others who condemn you without knowing your actions or the causes of them; and do you never judge others after that fashion?”

“I do not put myself forward as an example.”

“I apologise for the personal form of my appeal. A clergyman is apt to forget that he is not in the pulpit. Of course I speak of men in general. Taking society as a whole, the big and the little, the rich and the poor, I think that it grows better from year to year, and not worse. I think, too, that they who grumble at the times, as Horace did, and declare that each age is worse than its forerunner, look only at the small things beneath their eyes, and ignore the course of the world at large.”

“But Roman freedom and Roman manners were going to the dogs when Horace wrote.”

“But Christ was about to be born, and men were already being made fit by wider intelligence for Christ’s teaching. And as for freedom, has not freedom grown, almost every year, from that to this?”

“In Rome they were worshipping just such men as this Melmotte. Do you remember the man who sat upon the seats of the knights and scoured the Via Sacra with his toga, though he had been scourged from pillar to post for his villainies? I always think of that man when I hear Melmotte’s name mentioned. Hoc, hoc tribuno militum! Is this the man to be Conservative member for Westminster?”

“Do you know of the scourges, as a fact?”

“I think I know that they are deserved.”

“That is hardly doing to others as you would be done by. If the man is what you say, he will surely be found out at last, and the day of his punishment will come. Your friend in the ode probably had a bad time of it, in spite of his farms and his horses. The world perhaps is managed more justly than you think, Mr. Carbury.”

“My Lord, I believe you’re a Radical at heart,” said Roger, as he took his leave.

“Very likely⁠—very likely. Only don’t say so to the Prime Minister, or I shall never get any of the better things which may be going.”

The Bishop was not hopelessly in love with a young lady, and was therefore less inclined to take a melancholy view of things in general than Roger Carbury. To Roger everything seemed to be out of joint. He had that morning received a letter from Lady Carbury, reminding him of the promise of a loan, should a time come to her of great need. It had come very quickly. Roger Carbury did not in the least begrudge the hundred pounds which he had already sent to his cousin; but he did begrudge any furtherance afforded to the iniquitous schemes of Sir Felix. He felt all but sure that the foolish mother had given her son money for his abortive attempt, and that therefore this appeal had been made to him. He alluded to no such fear in his letter. He simply enclosed the cheque, and expressed a hope that the amount might suffice for the present emergency. But he was disheartened and disgusted by all the circumstances of the Carbury family. There was Paul Montague, bringing a woman such as Mrs. Hurtle down to Lowestoft, declaring his purpose of continuing his visits to her, and, as Roger thought, utterly unable to free himself from his toils⁠—and yet, on this man’s account, Hetta was cold and hard to him. He was conscious of the honesty of his own love, sure that he could make her happy⁠—confident, not in himself, but in the fashion and ways of his own life. What would be Hetta’s lot if her heart was really given to Paul Montague?

When he got home, he found Father Barham sitting in his library. An accident had lately happened at Father Barham’s own establishment. The wind had blown the roof off his cottage; and Roger Carbury, though his affection for the priest was waning, had offered him shelter while the damage was being repaired. Shelter at Carbury Manor was very much more comfortable than the priest’s own establishment, even with the roof on, and Father Barham was in clover. Father Barham was reading his own favourite newspaper, The Surplice, when Roger entered the room. “Have you seen this, Mr. Carbury?” he said.

“What’s this? I am not likely to have seen anything that belongs peculiarly to The Surplice.”

“That’s the prejudice of what you are pleased to call the Anglican Church. Mr. Melmotte is a convert to our faith. He is a great man, and will perhaps be one of the greatest known on the face of the globe.”

“Melmotte a convert to Romanism! I’ll make you a present of him, and thank you to take him; but I don’t believe that we’ve any such good riddance.”

Then Father Barham read a paragraph out of The Surplice. “Mr. Augustus Melmotte, the great financier and capitalist, has presented a hundred guineas towards the erection of an altar for the new church of St. Fabricius, in Tothill Fields. The donation was accompanied by a letter from Mr. Melmotte’s secretary, which leaves but little doubt that the new member for Westminster will be a member, and no inconsiderable member, of the Catholic party in the House, during the next session.”

“That’s another dodge, is it?” said Carbury.

“What do you mean by a dodge, Mr. Carbury? Because money is given for a pious object of which you do