The Duke's Children Part 36

"I should say so, my boy. But then there are a great many like you.

Let their means be what they may, they never have quite enough. To be in any difficulty with regard to money,--to owe what you cannot pay, or even to have to abstain from things which you have told yourself are necessary to yourself or to those who depend on you,--creates a feeling of meanness."

"That is what I have always felt," said Silverbridge. "I cannot bear to think that I should like to have a thing and that I cannot afford it."

"You do not quite understand me, I fear. The only case in which you can be justified in desiring that which you cannot afford is when the thing is necessary;--as bread may be, or clothes."

"As when a fellow wants a lot of new breeches before he has paid his tailor's bill."

"As when a poor man," said the Duke impressively, "may long to give his wife a new gown, or his children boots to keep their feet from the mud and snow." Then he paused a moment, but the serious tone of his voice and the energy of his words had sent Gerald headlong among his kidneys. "I say that in such cases money must be regarded as a blessing."

"A ten-pound note will do so much," said Silverbridge.

"But beyond that it ought to have no power of conferring happiness, and certainly cannot drive away sorrow. Not though you build palaces out into the deep, can that help you. You read your Horace, I hope.

'Scandunt eodum quo dominus minae.'"

"I recollect that," said Gerald. "Black care sits behind the horseman."

"Even though he have a groom riding after him beautiful with exquisite boots. As far as I have been able to look out into the world--"

"I suppose you know it as well as anybody," said Silverbridge,--who was simply desirous of making himself pleasant to the "dear old governor."

"As far as my experience goes, the happiest man is he who, being above the troubles which money brings, has his hands the fullest of work. If I were to name the cla.s.s of men whose lives are spent with the most thorough enjoyment, I think I should name that of barristers who are in large practice and also in Parliament."

"Isn't it a great grind, sir?" asked Silverbridge.

"A very great grind, as you call it. And there may be the grind and not the success. But--" He had now got up from his seat at the table and was standing with his back against the chimney-piece, and as he went on with his lecture,--as the word "But" came from his lips--he struck the fingers of one hand lightly on the palm of the other as he had been known to do at some happy flight of oratory in the House of Commons. "But it is the grind that makes the happiness. To feel that your hours are filled to overflowing, that you can barely steal minutes enough for sleep, that the welfare of many is entrusted to you, that the world looks on and approves, that some good is always being done to others,--above all things some good to your country;--that is happiness. For myself I can conceive none other."

"Books," suggested Gerald, as he put the last morsel of the last kidney into his mouth.

"Yes, books! Cicero and Ovid have told us that to literature only could they look for consolation in their banishment. But then they speak of a remedy for sorrow, not of a source of joy. No young man should dare to neglect literature. At some period of his life he will surely need consolation. And he may be certain that should he live to be an old man, there will be none other,--except religion. But for that feeling of self-contentment, which creates happiness--hard work, and hard work alone, can give it to you."

"Books are hard work themselves sometimes," said Gerald.

"As for money," continued the father, not caring to notice this interruption, "if it be regarded in any other light than as a s.h.i.+eld against want, as a rampart under the protection of which you may carry on your battle, it will fail you. I was born a rich man."

"Few people have cared so little about it as you," said the elder son.

"And you, both of you, have been born to be rich." This a.s.sertion did not take the elder brother by surprise. It was a matter of course.

But Lord Gerald, who had never as yet heard anything as to his future destiny from his father, was interested by the statement. "When I think of all this,--of what const.i.tutes happiness,--I am almost tempted to grieve that it should be so."

"If a large fortune were really a bad thing," said Gerald, "a man could I suppose get rid of it."

"No;--it is a thing of which a man cannot get rid,--unless by shameful means. It is a burden which he must carry to the end."

"Does anybody wish to get rid of it, as Sindbad did of the Old Man?" asked Gerald pertinaciously. "At any rate I have enjoyed the kidneys."

"You a.s.sured us just now that the bread and cheese at Ely were just as good." The Duke as he said this looked as though he knew that he had taken all the wind out of his adversary's sails. "Though you add carriage to carriage, you will not be carried more comfortably."

"A second horse out hunting is a comfort," said Silverbridge.

"Then at any rate don't desire a third for show. But such comforts will cease to be joys when they become matters of course. That a boy who does not see a pudding once a year should enjoy a pudding when it comes I can understand; but the daily pudding, or the pudding twice a day, is soon no more than simple daily bread,--which will or will not be sweet as it shall or shall not have been earned." Then he went slowly to the door, but, as he stood with the handle of it in his hand, he turned round and spoke another word. "When, hereafter, Gerald, you may chance to think of that bread and cheese at Ely, always remember that you had skated from Cambridge."

The two brothers then took themselves to some remote part of the house where arrangements had been made for smoking, and there they finished the conversation. "I was very glad to hear what he said about you, old boy." This of course came from Silverbridge.

"I didn't quite understand him."

"He meant you to understand that you wouldn't be like other younger brothers."

"Then what I have will be taken from you."

"There is lots for three or four of us. I do agree that if a fellow has as much as he can spend he ought not to want anything more.

Morton was telling me the other day something about the settled estates. I sat in that office with him all one morning. I could not understand it all, but I observed that he said nothing about the Scotch property. You'll be a laird, and I wish you joy with all my heart. The governor will tell you all about it before long. He's going to have two eldest sons."

"What an unnatural piece of cruelty to me;--and so unnecessary!"

"Why?"

"He says that a property is no better than a burden. But I'll try and bear it."

CHAPTER XXVI

Dinner at the Beargarden

The Duke was in the gallery of the House of Commons which is devoted to the use of peers, and Silverbridge, having heard that his father was there, had come up to him. It was then about half-past five, and the House had settled down to business. Prayers had been read, pet.i.tions had been presented, and Ministers had gone through their course of baiting with that equanimity and air of superiority which always belongs to a well-trained occupant of the Treasury bench.

The Duke was very anxious that his son should attend to his parliamentary duties, but he was too proud a man and too generous to come to the House as a spy. It was his present habit always to be in his own place when the Lords were sitting, and to remain there while the Lords sat. It was not, for many reasons, an altogether satisfactory occupation, but it was the best which his life afforded him. He would never, however, come across into the other House, without letting his son know of his coming, and Lord Silverbridge had on this occasion been on the look-out, and had come up to his father at once. "Don't let me take you away," said the Duke, "if you are particularly interested in your Chief's defence," for Sir Timothy Beeswax was defending some measure of legal reform in which he was said to have fallen into trouble.

"I can hear it up here, you know, sir."

"Hardly if you are talking to me."

"To tell the truth it's a matter I don't care much about. They've got into some mess as to the number of Judges and what they ought to do.

Finn was saying that they had so arranged that there was one Judge who never could possibly do anything."

"If Mr. Finn said so it would probably be so, with some little allowance for Irish exaggeration. He is a clever man, with less of his country's hyperbole than others;--but still not without his share."

"You know him well, I suppose."

"Yes;--as one man does know another in the political world."

"But he is a friend of yours? I don't mean an 'honourable friend,'

which is great bosh; but you know him at home."

"Oh yes;--certainly. He has been staying with me at Matching. In public life such intimacies come from politics."