He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖

Men whom we know to have

been as mild as sucking doves in the political aspiration of their

whole lives, suddenly jump up, and with infuriated gestures declare

themselves the enemies of everything existing. When they have obtained

their little purpose or have failed to do so they revert naturally into

their sucking-dove elements. It is so with Americans as frequently as

with ourselves and there is no political subject on which it is

considered more expedient to express pseudo-enthusiasm than on that of

the sins of England. It is understood that we do not resent it. It is

presumed that we regard it as the Irishman regarded his wife’s cuffs.

In the States a large party, which consists chiefly of those who have

lately left English rule, amid who are keen to prove to themselves how

wise they have been in doing so, is pleased by this strong language

against England; and, therefore, the strong language is spoken. But the

speakers, who are, probably, men knowing something of the world, mean

it not at all; they have no more idea of war with England than they

have of war with all Europe; and their respect for England and for

English opinion is unbounded. In their political tones of speech and

modes of action they strive to be as English as possible. Mr Spalding’s

aspirations were of this nature. He had uttered speeches against

England which would make the hair stand on end on the head of an

uninitiated English reader. He had told his countrymen that Englishmen

hugged their chains, and would do so until American hammers had knocked

those chains from off their wounded wrists and bleeding ankles. He had

declared that, if certain American claims were not satisfied, there was

nothing left for Americans to do but to cross the ferry with such a

sheriff’s officer as would be able to make distraint on the great

English household. He had declared that the sheriff’s officer would

have very little trouble. He had spoken of Canada as an outlying

American territory, not yet quite sufficiently redeemed from savage

life to be received into the Union as a State. There is a multiplicity

of subjects of this kind ready to the hand of the American orator. Mr

Spalding had been quite successful, and was now Minister at Florence;

but, perhaps, one of the greatest pleasures coming to him from his

prosperity was the enjoyment of the society of well-bred Englishmen in

the capital to which he had been sent. When, therefore, his wife and

nieces pointed out to him the fact that it was manifestly his duty to

call upon Mr Glascock after what had passed between them on that night

under the Campanile, he did not rebel for an instant against the order

given to him. His mind never reverted for a moment to that opinion

which had gained for him such a round of applause, when expressed on

the platform of the Temperance Hall at Nubbly Creek, State of Illinois,

to the effect that the English aristocrat, thorough-born and thorough-bred, who inherited acres and title from his father, could never be

fitting company for a thoughtful Christian American citizen. He at once

had his hat brushed, and took up his best gloves and umbrella, and went

off to Mr Glascock’s hotel. He was strictly enjoined by the ladies to

fix a day on which Mr Glascock would come and dine at the American

embassy.

 

‘“C. G.” has come back to see you,’ said Olivia to her elder sister.

They had always called him ‘C. G.’ since the initials had been seen on

the travelling bag.

 

‘Probably,’ said Carry. ‘There is so very little else to bring people

to Florence, that there can hardly be any other reason for his coming.

They do say it’s terribly hot at Naples just now; but that can have had

nothing to do with it.’

 

‘We shall see,’ said Livy. ‘I’m sure he’s in love with you. He looked

to me just like a proper sort of lover for you, when I saw his long

legs creeping up over our heads into the banquette.’

 

‘You ought to have been very much obliged to his long legs so sick as

you were at the time.’

 

‘I like him amazingly,’ said Livy, ‘legs and all. I only hope Uncle

Jonas won’t bore him, so as to prevent his coming.’

 

‘His father is very ill,’ said Carry, ‘and I don’t suppose we shall see

him at all.’

 

But the American Minister was successful. He found Mr Glascock sitting

in his dressing-gown, smoking a cigar, and reading a newspaper. The

English aristocrat seemed very glad to see his visitor, and assumed no

airs at all. The American altogether forgot his speech at Nubbly Creek,

and found the aristocrat’s society to be very pleasant. He lit a cigar,

and they talked about Naples, Rome, and Florence. Mr Spalding, when the

marbles of old Rome were mentioned, was a little too keen in insisting

on the merits of Story, Miss Hosmer, and Hiram Powers, and hardly

carried his listener with him in the parallel which he drew between

Greenough and Phidias; and he was somewhat repressed by the apathetic

curtness of Mr Glascock’s reply, when he suggested that the victory

gained by the gunboats at Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, was vividly

brought to his mind by an account which he had just been reading of the

battle of Actium; but he succeeded in inducing Mr Glascock to accept an

invitation to dinner for the next day but one, and the two gentlemen

parted on the most amicable terms.

 

Everybody meets everybody in Florence every day. Carry and Livy

Spalding had met Mr Glascock twice before the dinner at their uncle’s

house, so that they met at dinner quite as intimate friends. Mrs

Spalding had very large rooms, up three flights of stairs, on the

Lungarno. The height of her abode was attributed by Mrs Spalding to her

dread of mosquitoes. She had not yet learned that people in Florence

require no excuse for being asked to walk up three flights of stairs.

The rooms, when they were reached, were very lofty, floored with what

seemed to be marble, and were of a nature almost to warrant Mrs

Spalding in feeling that nature had made her more akin to an Italian

countess than to a matron of Nubbly Creek, State of Illinois, where Mr

Spalding had found her and made her his own. There was one other

Englishman present, Mr Harris Hyde Granville Gore, from the Foreign

Office, now serving temporarily at the English Legation in Florence;

and an American, Mr Jackson Unthank, a man of wealth and taste, who was

resolved on having such a collection of pictures at his house in

Baltimore that no English private collection should in any way come

near to it; and a Tuscan, from the Italian Foreign Office, to whom

nobody could speak except Mr Harris Hyde Granville Gore, who did not

indeed seem to enjoy the efforts of conversation which were expected of

him. The Italian, who had a handle to his name—he was a Count

Buonarosci—took Mrs Spalding into dinner. Mrs Spalding had been at

great trouble to ascertain whether this was proper, or whether she

should not entrust herself to Mr Glascock. There were different points

to be considered in the matter. She did not quite know whether she was

in Italy or in America. She had glimmerings on the subject of her

privilege to carry her own nationality into her own drawing-room. And

then she was called upon to deal between an Italian Count with an elder

brother, and an English Honourable, who had no such encumbrance. Which

of the two was possessed of the higher rank? ‘I’ve found it all out,

Aunt Mary,’ said Livy. ‘You must take the Count.’ For Livy wanted to

give her sister every chance. ‘How have you found it out?’ said the

aunt. ‘You may be sure it is so,’ said Livy.

 

And the lady in her doubt yielded the point. Mrs Spalding, as she

walked along the passage on the Count’s arm, determined that she would

learn Italian. She would have given all Nubbly Creek to have been able

to speak a word to Count Buonarosci. To do her justice, it must be

admitted that she had studied a few words. But her courage failed her,

and she could not speak them. She was very careful, however, that Mr H.

H. G. Gore was placed in the chair next to the Count.

 

‘We are very glad to see you here,’ said Mr Spalding, addressing

himself especially to Mr Glascock, as he stood up at his own seat at

the round table. ‘In leaving my own country, sir, there is nothing that

I value more than the privilege of becoming acquainted with those whose

historic names and existing positions are of such inestimable value to

the world at large.’ In saying this, Mr Spalding was not in the least

insincere, nor did his conscience at all prick him in reference to that

speech at Nubbly Creek. On both occasions he half thought as he spoke

or thought that he thought so. Unless it be on subjects especially

endeared to us the thoughts of but few of us go much beyond this.

 

Mr Glascock, who sat between Mrs Spalding and her niece, was soon asked

by the elder lady whether he had been in the States. No; he had not

been in the States. ‘Then you must come, Mr Glascock,’ said Mrs

Spalding, ‘though I will not say, dwelling as we now are in the

metropolis of the world of art, that we in our own homes have as much

of the outer beauty of form to charm the stranger as is to be found in

other lands. Yet I think that the busy lives of men, and the varied

institutions of a free country, must always have an interest peculiarly

their own.’ Mr Glascock declared that he quite agreed with her, and

expressed a hope that he might some day find himself in New York.

 

‘You wouldn’t like it at all,’ said Carry; ‘because you are an

aristocrat. I don’t mean that it would be your fault.’

 

‘Why should that prevent my liking it even if I were an aristocrat?’

 

‘One half of the people would run after you, and the other half would

run away from you,’ said Carry.

 

‘Then I’d take to the people who ran after me, and would not regard the

others.’

 

‘That’s all very well but you wouldn’t like it. And then you would

become unfair to what you saw. When some of our speechifying people

talked to you about our institutions through their noses, you would

think that the institutions themselves must be bad. And we have nothing

to show except our institutions.’

 

‘What are American institutions? asked Mr Glascock.

 

‘Everything is an institution. Having iced water to drink in every room

of the house is an institution. Having hospitals in every town is an

institution. Travelling altogether in one class of railway cars is an

institution. Saying sir, is an institution. Teaching all the children

mathematics is an institution. Plenty of food is an institution.

Getting drunk is an institution in a great many towns. Lecturing is an

institution. There are plenty of them, and some are very good but you

wouldn’t like it.’

 

‘At any rate, I’ll go and see,’ said Mr Glascock.

 

‘If you do, I hope we may be at home,’ said Miss Spalding.

 

Mr Spalding, in the mean time, with the assistance of his countryman,

the man of taste, was endeavouring to explain a certain point in

American politics to the count. As, in doing this, they called upon Mr

Gore to translate every speech they made into Italian, and