This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By George Meredith
1897
XI. CAPTAIN BASKELETT
XII. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS DR. SHRAPNEL
XIII. A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE
XIV. THE LEADING ARTICLE AND Mr. TIMOTHY TURBOT
XV. CECILIA HALKETT
XVI. A PARTIAL DISPLAY OF BEAUCHAMP IN HIS COLOURS
XVII. HIS FRIEND AND FOE
XVIII. CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING
Our England, meanwhile, was bustling over the extinguished war, countingthe cost of it, with a rather rueful eye on Manchester, and soothing thetaxed by an exhibition of heroes at brilliant feasts. Of course, thefirst to come home had the cream of the praises. She hugged them in amanner somewhat suffocating to modest men, but heroism must be brought tobear upon these excesses of maternal admiration; modesty, too, when itaccepts the place of honour at a public banquet, should not protestovermuch. To be just, the earliest arrivals, which were such as reachedthe shores of Albion before her war was at an end, did cordiallyreciprocate the hug. They were taught, and they believed most naturally,that it was quite as well to repose upon her bosom as to have stuck totheir posts. Surely there was a conscious weakness in the Spartans, whowere always at pains to discipline their men in heroical conduct, andrewarded none save the stand-fasts. A system of that sort seems tobetray the sense of poverty in the article. Our England does nothinglike it. All are welcome home to her so long as she is in want of them.Besides, she has to please the taxpayer. You may track a shadowy line orcrazy zigzag of policy in almost every stroke of her domestic history:either it is the forethought finding it necessary to stir up an impulse,or else dashing impulse gives a lively pull to the afterthought: policybecomes evident somehow, clumsily very possibly. How can she manage anenormous middle-class, to keep it happy, other than a little clumsily?The managing of it at all is the wonder. And not only has she to stupefythe taxpayer by a timely display of feastings and fireworks, she has tostop all that nonsense (to quote a satiated man lightened in his purse)at the right moment, about the hour when the old standfasts, who havesimply been doing duty, return, poor jog-trot fellows, and acomplimentary motto or two is the utmost she can present to them.On the other hand, it is true she gives her first loves, those earlybirds, fully to understand that a change has come in their islandmother's mind. If there is a balance to be righted, she leaves thatbusiness to society, and if it be the season for the gathering ofsociety, it will be righted more or less; and if no righting is done atall, perhaps the Press will incidentally toss a leaf of laurel on a nameor two: thus in the exercise of grumbling doing good.
With few exceptions, Nevil Beauchamp's heroes received the motto insteadof the sweetmeat. England expected them to do their duty; they did it,and she was not dissatisfied, nor should they be. Beauchamp, at adistance from the scene, chafed with customary vehemence, concerning theunjust measure dealt to his favourites: Captain Hardist, of the Diomed,twenty years a captain, still a captain! Young Michell denied the cross!Colonel Evans Cuff, o